


and your memory cannot keep me warm but it never leaves me cold

by janie_tangerine



Series: the jaimebrienne spite countdown to season eight [28]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Amnesia, Angst and Feels, Ballads, Brienne is the Best, Cersei Fans Please Abstain, Children, Episode: s08e05 The Bells, Eventual Fluff, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Families of Choice, Fix-It, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, Jaime Lannister Lives, Jaime Lannister Needs a Hug and He Gets It Goddamnit, Minor Arya Stark/Gendry Waters, Music, Oral Sex, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-Episode: s08e06 The Iron Throne, Reunions, Singing, Spitefic, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Woman on Top, d&d can choke on my spite <3, honest apologies to bob dylan and whichever old english singers i butchered, is half of the final part me throwing shade at d&d? maybe, jaime lannister is alive clown club, what are kingsguard vows? never knew them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-24
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2020-03-13 19:20:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 33,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18947242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janie_tangerine/pseuds/janie_tangerine
Summary: Maybe it would help him make sense of the mess in his head — it’s been days by now and beyond knowing in his heart, for sure, that the blonde, blue eyed ser lady with blue armor and ruby-hilted sword of his dreams can’t have been made up, he’s only ever had fleeting memories of that island, and every time he looks at his right wrist and the scars left by what feels like straps he feels something deeply wrong settle inside his gut, but he can’t say what. Otherwise he only dreams about that dragon fire or green fire, and a man laughing somewhere far away, and his head hurts whenever he tries to go any farther than that.He thinks that the ser lady of his dreams must be at least as honorable and brave as Ser Arthur Dayne from those songs. He’s sure that if she saw what he is seeing, she wouldn’t like it. After all, a knight’s duty is to protect the weak and innocent, right? He hasn’t seen much of that lately.Alternatively: in whichJaime Lannisterdies in King's Landing.Or maybe not quite so much.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> *deep breath* HELLO UHM SO HELLO THE LAST TWO EPS OF S8 WERE A DUMPSTER FIRE and I hereby present you my humble attempt at fixing the whole shebang with the help of an anon who after 8x05 asked _Au where jaime somehow escapes kings landing but he’s amnesiac so he becomes a travelling bard and brienne manages to track him down entirely because of a song he writes about wanting to be topped by a big blonde woman (makes it north of the wall and is the equivalent of being top 40 for a year) and it’s all shenanigans because brienne is trying to get jaime to remember as Jordan Lenton, amnesiac bard extraordinare, has met his Muse. His Goddess. All Hail blue eyes, he thinks, two couplets deep._ I went like OOOOOOH SOUNDS GREAT...... and then it turned into THIS FUCKING MONSTER - I have about two thirds of part two written already but since it was getting long and apparently people liked the one snipped I posted on tumblr I figured I'd split it in chapters and finish it in the next few days. Also: it's a lot less crackier than the prompt suggested. Anon idk it spiraled out of control. I'm really honestly sorry except I'm not.
> 
> Also, since I'M NOT GIVING UP ON THE SPITEFICS, I'm also using this one to raise a very courteous middle finger to:
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> I mean, no one says jb was *not* canon, right? ;) ;)
> 
> Anyway, other than the above nonsense: I of course don't own shit, if I owned GOT 2/3rds of this season would have been wildly different so sadly I don't, they belong to GRRM, I'm just here to fix d&d's mess.
> 
> Also: I can't write songs for shit from scratch. Like. I can't. I need a music to go behind them and I can't write music for shit either. Which is why the three songs Jaime comes up with in the course of this fic are reworked versions of, respectively, two Middle Ages ballads that will be linked in the next chapter where they'll be brought up to light *and* of Bob Dylan's [a hard rain's a-gonna fall](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5al0HmR4to) WHICH WAS ANYWAY IN TURN BASED ON A VERY FAMOUS MIDDLE AGES SCOTTISH BALLAD ~~lord randall the unwilling soundtrack of my fourth year of high school~~ SO IT COUNTS AND IT ACTUALLY FIT THE DAMNED THING. ofc I only came up with the not even *that* much reworked lyrics but the bulk is his sorry Bob I'm not worthy. Please give me some suspension of belief and buy that it might actually work in Westeros, the other two most likely would. The title is from Steve Earle's _you're still standing there_ , which is not at all medieval or a ballad *but* fits all of my ships and this one story perfectly.
> 
> Also, lowkey using this to fix Arya's storyline because what the hell was that ending? We just don't know. SEE YOU ALL TOMORROW OR SUNDAY WITH PART TWO UNLESS I GET ON A ROLL AND FINISH BOTH BEFORE SUNDAY. ;)

Everything _hurts._

He coughs, opening his eyes, blinking in the darkness. There’s a piece of concrete slab just over him, there’s dust in his mouth, and he coughs again, and again, and _again_.

 _What is this_ , he thinks, _why am I here_?

He turns to his left, where the ceiling that has for some miracle spared _him_ hasn’t spared someone else. It’s a woman, he notices. Half of her head is gone, crashed by the rubble, covered in red gore, but he can see golden blonde hair on the other side, a dead cold hand touching his left wrist, and he immediately jerks it back.

It feels wrong. He doesn’t know who she is. She’s dead. He doesn’t want to touch her.

He closes his eyes.

For that matter, he thinks he doesn’t even know who _he_ is. He can’t remember a single thing from before he opened his eyes that’s not searing pain, and actually —

He sits up, slow. His midriff is hurting and caked in dried blood, and he spits some more of it as he coughs, but he can breathe. All right. All right, he’s not dying yet. He breathes in again, trying to find a way out of this rubble before it falls upon him for good — he can see a sliver of sunlight coming in from an opening on his left, right where the ceiling has _not_ crushed him.

Where is he even? He doesn’t know.

He notices a golden bracelet with emeralds on the woman’s wrist and snatches it away without thinking — surely he might need something valuable if he has to get away from whatever _this_ is. He reaches out with his right hand to find out that —

Oh.

There’s none.

There’s only a naked stump, stopping just at his wrist, covered in red, angry scars and dust and blood.

He snatches the bracelet with the other hand, stuffs it inside his breeches, and then tries to crawl his way out of the rubble.

He takes it slow, his nails cracking over the stones he has to move out, each single movement a bout of pain spiking through his side.

He closes his eyes, wondering if he should just let himself die —

 

 _Are you so craven_?

 

He opens them again at once.

What —

That was a woman’s voice. But there’s no other woman here beyond the dead one. Oh.

Maybe he remembers it?

 

 _What else can I do, but die_?

 _Live. Live, and fight, and take revenge_.

 

He doesn’t know why _he_ would need to take revenge on anyone, but — but the memory of that conversation bursts through him so strong he feels like his head might split.

He closes his eyes and sees blue behind them, bright bright sapphire blue, and he wonders, _do they belong to whoever it is that’s telling me I should live_?

He opens them again. Suddenly, the light doesn’t seem so far anymore. He breathes in more dust and rubble, then he crawls his way outside it, until he’s out in some kind of underground cave where the walls are red and high and seem about to crumble on themselves too, and suddenly he wants to be away from them, away from here, and he stumbles to his feet, wading through the rest of the rubble and trying to find a way out so he can regroup and _think_ , damn it —

He stumbles some more, he’s obviously in some kind of underground cave, and when he reaches what seems like stairs they all have crumbled down on themselves, but maybe — there’s some kind of tunnel on the side and it’s apparently the only way somewhere.

He takes it.

He walks in the dark for a while — at some point he can only feel the pain in his midsection and he feels like suffocating, and something tells him he should have a right hand but he _doesn’t_ and this doesn’t add up, he doesn’t get it, he doesn’t, he thinks _someone_ should be with him, like they were already once, someone with a sword and blue eyes —

He stumbles upwards as soon as he sees light coming out from the end of the corridor.

The first thing he does as he hoists himself outside, in some kind of garden filled with rubble, is breathe in, and it’s fresh air, but —

 _But it smells like fire_ , and then he turns and sees one of the castle’s towers falling on themselves because _there’s a dragon breathing fire from the sky_ in some kind of unholy rain, and —

He moves his left hand to his waist and tries to run in the other direction, thankful that he’s in the middle of a lot of damned rubble already and so maybe whatever it is that dragon won’t come back.

He doesn’t even know where he is or what is this place’s name or why he’d be under a burning castle, but —

He tries to run.

He ends up in the middle of a lot of other people also running away from the city, whatever this city is, and he can only hear that female voice telling him that he has to _live and take revenge_ , but on what? Why would he need revenge on anyone or anything?

He crumbles to his knees once, twice, thrice, and at the third time he’s _this_ close to just let the crowd trample him and be done with it, but then —

 

_Live._

_Live, and fight, and take revenge_.

 

There’s _that_ voice telling him to _not_ do it and for some reason it feels important to follow it, so he tries to get back on his feet and manages and runs some more — oh. He lost his boots along the way. Now he even has bare feet, for —

He throws himself to the side as another bout of fire destroys the houses nearby. Shit, shit, _shit_ —

He gets back on his knees, stumbles forwardforward _forward_ , until he’s _somehow_ down the fucking hill, and he looks to the side, checking if there’s _some_ way out —

His eyes focus on a bunch of people loading wagons — they look like mummers, maybe, and they have some five of them, and they’re loading some wounded men on them, but… they also aren’t _that_ many.

He reaches down with his left hand, finds that gold and emeralds bracelet and stumbles towards the wagon.

“Please,” he croaks, “who’s in charge?”

An elderly tall man with a thin face and sharp blue eyes turns and takes a good look at him, not seeming too convinced. “Sorry,” he says, “I’m not taking anyone that’s not in the company. Can’t afford —”

He opens his hand, lets him see the bracelet, notices the man’s eyes go wide.

“You can have this,” he says, “you don’t even have to cure me, just bring me out of here. Please.”

“Seven hells,” the man says, taking a _very_ good look at it. “That’s — never mind. You’re coming. What’s your name?”

Huh.

“I — I don’t know,” he admits. “I — my house fell on me,” he half-lies, because he doesn’t really think that castle was _his_ house, how could it be when it felt so _wrong_ to be in there, and why would someone without a hand or a sword or a valuable thing on him live in a castle?, but it’s the next best excuse he has. “I don’t remember anything.”

“Shit out of luck, huh? Right. Will, help him up on the wounded cart and see to him!”

“But —”

The man shows this other person, Will, the bracelet. Will immediately shuts up and comes to his side, helping him up on the wagon in question. He has enough time to notice that he’s in between another three wounded men, a wounded kid and a woman whose arm is completely burned out.

Then he passes out.

— —

He doesn’t know how long it takes him to finally regain consciousness for more than a few minutes at a time, but what he knows is that every single time he passes out, his dreams only show him fire both green and red, rubble, pain and blood, but when they don’t they’re filled to the bring with a pair of sapphire blue eyes and soft blonde hair, which then turns into a tall woman with large shoulders and a twice-broken nose and a sword with a golden hilt made of rubies, and —

_Live._

_Live and fight_ , she tells him, gently, so very gently, the way he feels no one else might have been to him, or maybe no other woman, and if it’s at the end of one of those nightmares at least it eases his sleep, and by the time he finally opens his eyes and sees sunlight streaming from the wagon’s opening, his entire mid frame is hurting but it doesn’t feel like he’ll _die_ , and that man Will is at his bedside as the cart moves ahead. He has long chestnut hair and similarly colored eyes, a thin face and he’s on the wrong side of thin, he thinks. He hasn’t eaten much lately, that’s for sure.

“Welcome back,” he says, sounding entirely less harsh than he had before. “You remembered anythin’?”

He tries to _think_ about it.

He shakes his head. “I remember a woman,” he shrugs.

“‘Course you do. Your wife?”

There’s a strange pang in his chest.

“I don’t know,” he admits. “But — she’s tall. Blonde. Blue eyes. Wears sword and armor.”

Will snorts. “A _woman_ knight? Sounds like you have a good imagination. You must’ve taken a bad hit back in King’s Landing.”

“… That’s how that city’s called?”

“You _really_ hit that head of yours hard,” Will sighs. “Anyway, aye, that was King’s Landing. Used to be. The dragon queen destroyed most of it, though. Not that it matters none.”

“It… doesn’t?”

“She died,” Will says. “Her nephew’s hand, or somethin’. Who knew Rhaegar Targaryen had a bloody _son_  left alive?”

The name tells him _something_ , as if it’s familiar beyond knowing he was supposed to be the king once and never was, but the moment he thinks about it, he feels a pang of pain in his head that makes it feel like it’ll split.

Not now.

“Anyway,” Will says, “since I guess that asking you questions won’t help anyone because you wouldn’t have the answers, let me give you a run-down of our situation.”

“ _Our_?”

Will shrugs. “You _are_ aware we are into the mummery business, or did you forget that, too?”

“No, I figured that out when I saw the banners on the wagons.”

“Good. Take a look around.”

He does and — wait. When he got on this wagon, there were some wounded men, a child and a woman. Now he only sees the child and one other man sleeping, but the others are gone.

“Wait,” he says. “There was a woman, right? And a few other men?”

“So you _do_ remember that,” Will sighs. “The wounds were too bad for both Tom and Ben, and Becca — she’s the child’s mother, well, she _was_ , I reckon —, those burns were too much. Harrold is desperate.”

“Harrold is… the owner?”

“Aye,” Will sighs. “Harrold Waters’s company, at your service. As it is, right now it’s him, me, Olyvar over there when he feels better and a few others in the other wagons. And the child, of course, but _he_ is hardly going to help right now.”

“I — I’m sorry,” he says, a part of him thinking, _how did I live with these wounds and no memories but these people haven’t when they most likely deserved better_?

“Appreciated,” Will says. “Anyway, Harrold is trying to get his bearings together and that’s why I’m here. He wants to know what are your plans.”

He shrugs.

“Truthfully? I don’t know. I don’t even remember my bloody damn _name_.”

“Well, case is, your gold and emeralds might’ve saved our collective hide for the next few months.”

“ _Sorry_?”

“Harrold bought enough food for weeks with it, and he says we’ve got enough left from where he traded it to last for a while. Whoever in the seven hells you are, we’re in your debt. So, he said that if you want to make yourself useful or whatever, he’s not going to send you away. It’s not like we have no space, all the contrary.”

Oh.

 _Oh_.

His eyes burn. He wipes at them with his left hand. “I — I would,” he concedes, “but how? I mean, I’m not — the hand —”

“That’s not a problem in this business,” Will says. “Anyway, not _now_. We still have to all get our collective bearings together, I think. At least all of the _actors_ didn’t die.”

“Wait, are you one?”

“No, I write the pieces,” Will sighs. “Harrold does, too, other than handling the finances. Becca and Tom were the singers and Ben handled the costumes. I guess you couldn’t do _that_ but believe me, we can find you something to do.”

He thinks about it, but then again… what choice does he have? He doesn’t even have anything bar the clothes on his back, and not even his shoes for that matter.

“I — would like that,” he says. “Thank you.”

“Should be us thanking you, or we wouldn’t even be eatin’ today.”

The child cries a little in his sleep.

“What’s the name?” He asks.

“Didn’t have one yet,” Will shrugs. “Becca and Tom wanted to wait until he survived three years, he was from the North. And sure as the seven hells _he_ survived ‘em, guess you’ve got something in common. By the way, we should call you _something_ if you’re to stay. Think about it. Least you can choose whoever you want to be now, right?”

He nods as Will jumps down from the wagon, heading for the next one.

 

 _Whatever he wanted_ —

 

It seems important, too.

But he doesn’t know _how_.

He shakes his head, sitting up and leaning against the side of the wagon.

The unnamed child on the other side starts wailing harder and harder, and suddenly he feels _another_ pang in his chest, something that tells him this is wrong and he should fix it somehow but he’s not allowed to —

 _Why_ , though?

Will said it, the child’s parents are dead and no one is coming, and the other man is dead to the world if not for stirring a bit.

He shrugs, reaches out and groans in pain — fuck. He can’t move, but —

“Hey,” he croaks, “come here?”

He makes a motion with his left hand the moment they make eye contact — how old is he? One? Maybe more, but certainly not much more. Is it enough for —

The child makes another noise and stumbles towards him, it’s not much of a distance after all, and the moment he manages to hold him properly

 

( _where did he learn_? he can’t remember, but he knows he learned, a long time ago)

 

he goes a bit quieter, or at least he stops crying, and something tells him that it’s not something he’s _never_ done, because it comes instinctually to move his hand to the back of the child’s head. He stares down at him, taking a better look — he has black raven hair, pale skin, and… emerald green eyes, and for some reason his chest contorts at the sight but not in a bad way, and when he smooths his dirty hair back from his face the kid leans up into the touch, and he’s not crying anymore even if his eyes are red-rimmed.

Well.

At least it seems like he’s good at _something_ now, is he?

The wagon stops and Will shows up again at its back. “How did — oh.”

“What?”

“You made him stop?” Will asks, taking in the sight. He shrugs.

“I tried. Guess it worked?”

“Well, he’s got no one but us,” Will shrugs. “No one’s stopping you.”

 _Guess what_ , he thinks, _I’ve got no one either_ , even if — he closes his eyes, thinks about those blue eyes and blonde hair, and if he focuses on it he feels rough but gentle hands holding his wrists down to a softer mattress than _this_ , and so maybe he’s making her up, but — she doesn’t feel _made-up_.

Still.

He has no name, for either her or him, nor for the child curled up against his chest.

He hopes he remembers something else in the next days, and if for now they’re getting away from that burned city, all the better.

The child stirs again, crying once more, and the other man wakes up with a groan.

“Hells,” he says, “everything hurts, just make him stop.”

“And how should I, pray tell?” He snaps back.

“Fuck knows, his mother sang to him, for all the good it made her.”

 _Yes, maybe if I remembered any songs_ —

Suddenly, he thinks he _might_.

He closes his eyes, seeing the woman’s blue sapphires tearing up in joy, as someone else asks for a song and someone he doesn’t know clears his throat —

 _Maybe_ —

“High in the halls of the kings who are gone,” he croaks, not even knowing _how_ he knows it, but it comes to him at once, “Jenny would dance with her ghosts, the ones she had lost and the ones she had found… and the ones who had loved her the most —”

Huh.

It _works_.

The other man groans something in thanks and goes back to sleep, and before he knows it he’s sang the entire thing and the kid is asleep in his arms and he feels like crying because he’s _missing everything_ and he doesn’t know why and how he knows that song and it makes _him_ want to cry, but — it’s no matter. It _did_ work, and he obviously _did_ have a life before, well, before _whatever happened to him_.

Maybe he’ll remember.

Gods, he hopes he does.

Because he wants to know who _she_ is.

— —

“You know,” Will tells him later that evening as they sit around a fire somewhere in the Kingsroad, or so he’s been told that’s the name, after a day of traveling in the middle of starved, half-burned people on the run, “you weren’t half bad at that.”

“What, singing?”

“You’ve got a nice voice,” Will confirms. “And we lost two singers. Also, if you don’t remember shit from before, how do you know _Jenny of Oldstones_ of anything?”

He thinks about it for a moment. It comes out blank. “I don’t know,” he admits, rubbing his right stump with his hand. “Honest, I don’t. But if you think I could do it… I guess why not. Teach me the songs. I can’t play them, though.”

“You don’t need to _play_ anythin’, especially these days. Jon can, in case.”

Right, one of the other actors. It’s five of them — Jon, Olyvar, Martyn, Alyse and Hildy. _Those_ names he remembers.

“I mean, he can play it for you while you learn it and then you won’t need that anymore. _The Bear and the Maiden Fair_ is always good for the morale.”

 _Suddenly_ , he feels a pang to his chest, all over again. He thinks he sees _her_ again. She’s in pink now, though. And she _is_ fighting a bear. Maybe. He doesn’t know. He closes his eyes, opens them, thinks of one of them shouting _get behind me_ , and _I’ll pay her bloody ransom_ , how could _he_ pay any ransom —

He shakes his head. Suddenly, it’s gone. He looks back at Will again.

“I — all right,” he says, “but I think I know that one, too.”

“You sure you weren’t a singer once?” Will japes, but — no.

No. But —

“No, but I think I did like songs.”

“Good for you then. Tomorrow we can go to Harrold and discuss it proper, it’s not like we can perform for anyone until we’re at least in the darned Stormlands. No one’s going to pay for songs _here_. And think about what name you want.”

He nods, says he’ll think about it, finishes his stew.

He will. Soon.

— —

Harrold is only too glad to take him in, or so it seems. He tells him that they’re going to travel downwards until they get to the Stormlands and then they can see to try and regroup for what they can, and that he has time until then to decide however in the seven hells he wants to be called.

“Can you read?” He asks after they agreed on it.

He’s taken aback by the question. “I… guess? I don’t know.”

“Well, we can check presently,” Harrold says. “At least it would tell you where you come from. Roughly.”

He’s handed one of Will’s short plays. It’s written in a neat hand, he notices. He squints and tries.

Turns out, he can read passably even if he has some trouble on some words here and there. Harrold tries him with the writing, turns out that he most likely wasn’t left-handed because his penmanship is terrible and he apparently mixes letters, too, but he _can_ do that. Harrold shrugs and tells him that most likely he’s also a commoner but not a very poor one, since he _could_ learn to do that even if not that well, and it feels… not _right_ , not quite so, but it’s the only explanation. It doesn’t explain the woman knight, and when he tentatively asks Harrold if he ever heard of one, he shakes his head.

“Not a _knight_ , for sure,” he says “You’ve got a good imagination, though. _Women_ knights. You could make a song out of that, if you had the mind for it.”

“… Could I?” He asks, suddenly feeling like _that_ is right.

Harrold shrugs. “Get your shit together first. Then — well. We’ve got to put on a show, don’t we?”

— —

Jon seems only too happy to _teach him songs_ — “At least it’ll relieve me of boredom,” he shrugs before he joins him in the wagon. The nameless child is sleeping on his cot, Olyvar — who is in the same wagon as them — is off with the others around the fire and they have nothing to do now that night has fallen.

“So,” he asks, “which ones should I know?”

Jon shrugs. “ _The Bear and the Maiden Fair_ for sure. Possibly _The Dornishman’s Wife_. Those should do for entertaining people. Best to not touch _The Rains of Cast —_ are you all right?”

For a moment, he felt like throwing up at the mention of _that_ one song.

He shakes his head. “I will be. All right. Sure. Go ahead.”

It’s not _hard_ , he decides a while into it — the music is easy to remember for all of them, pretty much, and the words aren’t hard either. Jon leaves him a few copies of the lyrics, then hands him another stash of paper.

“These are all the ones I know,” he shrugs. “See if there’s any you might like. The more you know, the better.”

He reads them, thankfully they’re all fairly short and written clearly. Most just sound sad, if you ask his opinion —

That is, until he gets to one that’s about a Ser Arthur Dayne slaying a bandit some twenty years ago — _something_ feels right about it. He doesn’t know what it is, but as he reads all over again of how that brave and strong knight saved the smallfolk from such a cruel foe

 

( _why couldn’t he be around for that dragon?_ , a part of him asks, but then doesn’t press)

 

and being so gallant and courteous his heart leaps in his throat a few times, and he thinks, _wouldn’t that be sweet if people like him still lived_ , and then he wonders, _would the blue-eyed knight of my dreams be like him_?

He thinks about how kind and large and blue her eyes are.

Maybe she’d be even better, he thinks.

He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know much —

But maybe he _does_ know one thing.

— —

“So,” Will asks him the next morning, “have you picked a name?”

“Arthur will do,” he says. It’s not _absolutely_ right, it doesn’t feel _his_ , but it’s the closest he could think of and nothing else he tried to consider actually did fit.

“Arthur it is,” Will says, patting him on the shoulder. “Welcome to the show, then.”

“Thanks,” he replies, and decides that he could be doing a lot worse.

— —

They travel downwards.

He hates what he sees.

Outside King’s Landing, it was burned houses and burned _people_ everywhere. Down here, it’s abandoned forests, cold everywhere, biting snow, harsh rains, and poor people running from the capital. They learn that the Dragon Queen is dead and that Rhaegar Targaryen’s heir is held prisoner and no one knows what’ll be of the realm, but that most likely the Northern armies will come down to take him back and so no one wants to be there for it.

“‘Course they don’t want to be anywhere near that shithole,” says one of the actresses, Alyse. She’s short of height with long raven hair and blue eyes and a sharp mouth, and he does like it about her. “Years of fuckin’ wars here an’ there because them highnesses couldn’t agree on who got to sit on that iron trap, then they show up with bloody dragons, who’d blame anyone for fleeing King’s Landing?”

Considering how many half-starved people they ran along into the road, never mind corpses, Arthur can’t blame her for thinking that, nor the others for fleeing that city. He sees fire in his dreams at night even if sometimes it turns into blue, sapphire waters around an island. He doesn’t know if he’s ever been there or if he just dreamed it, but — it looks like a nice place. He’d like to see it for real, one day.

Still, he wonders, thinking of all the songs Jon showed him before, do _any_ of those talk about how _people_ are affected by lords’s wars?

Later in the night, as Tom and Becca’s yet unnamed child sleeps curled against his chest, he realizes none of them did.

Maybe he could write one.

Maybe it would help him make sense of the mess in his head — it’s been days by now and beyond knowing in his heart, for sure, that the blonde, blue eyed ser lady with blue armor and ruby-hilted sword of his dreams _can’t_ have been made up, he’s only ever had fleeting memories of that island, and every time he looks at his right wrist and the scars left by what feels like straps he feels something deeply _wrong_ settle inside his gut, but he can’t say what. Otherwise he only dreams about that dragon fire or _green_ fire, and a man laughing somewhere far away, and his head _hurts_ whenever he tries to go any farther than that.

He thinks that the ser lady of his dreams _must_ be at least as honorable and brave as Ser Arthur Dayne from those songs. He’s sure that if she saw what _he_ is seeing, she wouldn’t like it. After all, a knight’s duty is to protect the weak and innocent, right? He hasn’t seen much of that lately.

He hasn’t even seen many knights around here lately, for that matter.

Arthur runs his finger across the kid’s neck when he stirs in his sleep.

 _Maybe_ —

 _Maybe_.

Tomorrow he will ask Jon for some quill and paper. For now, he hums under his breath, wondering if he _can_ come up with some music for it. Maybe not as sad as damn _Jenny of Oldstones_ , at least.

— —

Two weeks later, as they make camp near the ruins of Summerhall, Jon and Will read what he half-managed to put to page. The penmanship is terrible and he’s sure that he got the words mixed up, but not enough for them to _not_ get it.

“Huh,” Will says, “you sure you didn’t write for a living, before?”

“What? No,” Arthur says. “I really think not. Why?”

“This is good,” Jon says. “You _really_ like this ser lady of yours, huh?”

He shrugs. “What can I say, I dream of her,” he admits.

“How romantic,” says Hildy, the other actress in the group. Her grey eyes are downright sparkling as she looks down at the page, moving her red braid behind her shoulder. “Why don’t you write her a love song, too? Maybe if she exists she’ll hear it and find you.”

“Hells,” Alyse scoffs, “you _really_ are hopeless, aren’t you?”

“Hey,” Jon interrupts her, “love songs mean money. If he writes us a few, since it looks like he _can_ come up with a tune, it’s just more food into everyone’s dinner. Also, women knights aren’t a thing in many songs. Could be good.”

Arthur half-smiles. “So, this one could work?”

“Hells,” Will says, “this one is fucking _good_ , my friend. Maybe it can be good to go by the time we get to Blackheaven.”

“Great,” Arthur smiles, and for the first time since he woke up he feels… not _positive_ about this, but at least like things are moving on for the better.

And Hildy _did_ have a point, didn’t she?

“Aye, aye,” says Martyn, “and why don’t you actually sing it to us if it’s so good? Not all of us can _read_ , you know.”

“If you insist,” Arthur says.

“Wait,” Jon interrupts, “let me get the lute. We should practice the music, too, at this point.”

He does, and they sit around the fire again.

“Right,” Hildy says, “we’re waiting.”

Arthur clears his throat, then he closes his eyes. He doesn’t need to read the lyrics to sing them.

 

_Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed ser?_

_Oh, where have you been, my darling young maid?_

_I’ve stumbled on the side of twelve northern mountains_

_I’ve walked and I’ve crawled on the crooked Kingsroad_

_I’ve stepped in the middle of seven sad forests_

_I’ve been out in front of a dozen dead seas_

_I’ve been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard_

_And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, and it’s a hard_

_And it’s a hard fire’s a-gonna fall_ —

— —

“… And what did you hear, my blue-eyed ser? And what did you hear, my darling young maid? I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin’, heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world, heard one hundred soldiers whose hands were a-blazin’ —”

When Arya Stark hears those lyrics, she’s in a tavern in Pentos.

She hadn’t really paid attention to what that song was saying when she walked in, and she had ordered some wine and sat down on a stool, and then she had paid attention to what that singer was actually blathering about.

And —

“— Heard ten thousand whisperin’ and nobody listenin’, heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin’, heard the song of a bard who died in the gutter, heard the sound of a fool who cried in the alley, and it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, and it’s a hard fire’s a-gonna fall…”

Maybe she heard wrong.

He didn’t say _ser_ in the beginning, did he…? She keeps her eyes open for the next part. Maybe she’s wrong. Surely she’s wrong.

“Oh, what’ll you do now, my blue-eyed ser? Oh, what’ll you do now, my darling young maid?”

Oh, _shit_. Is that a song about _Brienne of Tarth_? It has to be. Who the fuck else could be a _blue-eyed ser_ who’s also a _maid_?

Except —

“I’m a-goin’ back out ’fore the fire starts a-fallin’, I’ll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest, where the people are many and their hands are all empty, where the ashes of their bones are flooding their waters, where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison —”

That’s _not_ about the Long Night.

No, that was about King’s Landing.

Brienne _never was in King’s Landing._

“— Where the executioner’s face is always well hidden, where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten, where black is the color, where none is the number, and I’ll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it, and reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it, then I’ll stand on the sea until I start sinkin’, but I’ll know my song well before I start singin’, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard fire’s a-gonna fall…”

Who _could_ write a song about Brienne of Tarth _in King’s Landing_?

She stands up and reaches the singer just after he’s done, asking if he could answer a couple of questions, and hands him a few coins before doing so.

“Who wrote that?”

“What, that song?” The man shrugs. “Dunno. Came from Westeros. It’s been quite successful over there. And people want to know about King’s Landing, I guess. Always makes me good money.”

“But _someone_ must have come up with it.”

“Well,” he says, “I mean, no one really ever knows when it comes to _songs_ half of the time. Apparently it was some singer in the Stormlands who survived the second Battle of the Bells, but it could’ve been anyone.”

“I see,” Arya tells him. “Thank you.”

She goes back to her seat.

She can’t help thinking that no one found Jaime Lannister’s body in the rubble, just the golden hand, but his sister’s was half crushed and everything was full of blood, so they had all figured that the rocks crushed him worse than they crushed her.

But —

Someone who survived King’s Landing, singing about _Brienne of Tarth_?

She thinks of how inconsolable Sansa told her she was after the idiot rode off for King’s Landing.

She stands up and goes back to the singer.

“You think you could sing _that_ again?” She asks, handing him another few coins.

“Hells, you’re paying me. Of course I would.”

She sits back down. She listens to it again. Very carefully. The first stanza could almost have convinced her that she was making it up, and then…

“ — Oh, what did you see, my blue-eyed ser? Oh, what did you see, my darling young maid? I saw a newborn baby with direwolves all around it, I saw a street paved with gold with nobody on it, I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin’, I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleedin’, I saw a white belltower all covered with fire, I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken, I saw bows and sharp swords in the hands of young children, and it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, and it’s a hard fire’s a-gonna fall —”

No.

No, she’s not making it up.

Whoever wrote this, was there. And _knew_ her.

She considers.

 _Should I keep this for myself or not?_ Suddenly she feels a pang in her chest, wondering if she’s feeling nostalgic for nothing or if it’s just homesickness, and then she remembers how Brienne and Lannister looked at each other during that trial and after the battle, and she remembers Gendry’s face as she refused him, and she remembers Brienne’s when she heard of how Lannister died, and —

She stands up and leaves.

She thinks she’s sailing back to Westeros tomorrow. Maybe she’ll go back to Storm’s End for a visit and see if — well. If she’s still in time to mend things.

But before, she thinks she’s going to King’s Landing to warn Ser Brienne of Tarth that Lannister might not be so dead, after all.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AAAAND PART TWO IS HERE! Part three will arrive in the next couple of days. have faith they're getting nice things ;)
> 
> ALSO, as per what pertains the songs featured in this chapter: the first one is based on [this specific rendition of _Lady Isobel and the Elf Knight_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGFBzac-gKc) ie the most suitable R-rated ballad I could find whose lyrics fit my needs. The second one is based on [this specific version of _Hind Horn_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djwvENi7AGw) which is... in itself a very JB-fitting story if you switch genders if you ask me, but nvm. The Maddy Prior version is also very nice but this one had a better version of the lyrics that suited my needs more. ;)
> 
> Aaaand, have fun and YES this has gotten 100% under control. I'm not even trying to keep it under 20k anymore.

“Seven hells,” Will says as he reads the piece of paper Arthur just handed him, “and how did you come up with _that_?”

Arthur shrugs. “I told you,” he says, not quite looking Will’s way. “I see her every night.”

“I can believe you _see_ her.” Will rolls his eyes. “If anything, this’d give _The Bear and the Maiden Fair_ a run for its money, when it comes to that kind of song. But like, I suppose, uh, that if you _see_ her every night —”

Arthur thinks he might be blushing. Maybe. But he’s going to own up to it. “Listen, I don’t know if she’s real or not or if I made her up or not, but _yes_ , I had a few dreams where _that_ happened and Harrold said that he needed something to get the blood going and then winked ten times, I like to think I can catch a meaning.”

“I suppose that she’s _extremely_ good at fucking then,” Alyse comments with a sly smile as she looks over Will’s shoulder. “That’s _raunchy_.”

Arthur smirks back at her. He finds it easier, these days. “Oh, she’s exceedingly good at it. In my dreams, at least.”

“Oh, and she _binds_ the lord with his own sword-belt? You never said that was your thing.”

He scoffs, rolling his eyes. “You never _asked_ , and sorry but you’re not my type.”

She rolls her eyes back at him. “Well, if you like ‘em blonde, _taller_ than you and blue-eyed, sure as the seven hells I’m not. That said, if she exists and hears _this_ , sure as I live she’ll show up. I wouldn’t want the entire realm to know how I fuck, but who knows, maybe she’s into it.”

She goes to rehearse her lines with Martyn and Will brings his attention back to Arthur. “Whatever, she’s got a point, but we also need the raunchy song and this’ll do, regardless of… the subject. It’s good for me, if Harrold agrees to it find Jon and you can start singing it tomorrow. If it goes even half as well as that other one you had, we’re set for the entire winter.”

Harrold, eventually, approves. Arthur doesn’t hold much hope that _this_ will help him find her, not when that other song he wrote about the dragonfire in King’s Landing has spread far and wide and no news of her yet… but he can hope, right?

Later that evening, as he lays down on his cot in the usual wagon, the still unnamed child latching to his shirt, he closes his eyes and sees that blue island with sapphire waters and green shores, and he hears his own voice saying that he’s never slept with a knight before, and her voice replying, _I’ve never slept with anyone_ , and he can’t fathom why because who _wouldn’t_ sleep with such a magnificent woman?

He doesn’t know.

He’s remembered that for a while. Only that, though. That’s why he put it in that one song.

Maybe she’ll hear it.

Maybe she’ll know him.

Gods, he hopes so much that she’ll know him, because does he even know himself?

Not at all, no.

He breathes out and imagines that she’s behind him, on the other side of the bed.

— —

“Lady Arya,” Brienne says, trying to keep her voice calm, “are you _sure_?”

Arya shrugs, nodding at her. “I am. I mean, I suppose that in between rebuilding this place and the city still being what it was, most bards wouldn’t come here, so you wouldn’t know. And if you still haven’t done the proper coronation ceremony and everything yet, I guess people not from here wouldn’t know for sure yet that _you_ are the Lord Commander. But that song was definitely about you. Come on, it addressed a _blue eyed ser_ that also was a _darling young maid_ in the next line, and it talked about the King’s Landing fire, and about the dead, and it mentioned direwolves. Who else could it be?”

Brienne takes one deep breath. Then another. Then she turns to look at Tyrion, who has heard the exchange with uttermost interest and now looks three shades paler.

“Do you think he might _really_ have lived?” She asks, her voice trembling in spite of herself.

“I — well,” he says, “we _did_ find the golden hand. And there was a lot of blood and — gore, I suppose. But the body was never recovered, technically. He might, but then why would he have left? I don’t think it would have been shame to see either of us again, he… wasn’t like that. But mostly, if he didn’t want to see either of us again, if it’s _him_ , he wouldn’t be writing songs about _you_ now, would he?”

Brienne nods — that makes sense. “Still,” she says, “it might be some soldier that survived Winterfell. I _did_ lead there.”

“Which soldier would call their commander a _darling young maid_?” Arya rolls her eyes. “It’s not as if you have to do anything about it. If you want to leave him to rot, he asked for it. But I figured you might want to know.”

She swallows, trying to still her heartbeat.

_If he’s alive_ —

“My lady commander?”

She turns towards Pod, who has quickly entered the room, looking… somewhat embarrassed.

“Ser Podrick,” she says. “Do we have a problem?”

He goes red in the face. “Uhm,” he says, “… I don’t know. But, one of the men heard this singer in one of those three taverns that didn’t burn during the fire. And he was — according to him, the person in question was belting a song mocking you.”

“ _Mocking me_.”

“It… its terms were hardly honorable or flattering.”

“Ser Podrick, just tell it how it is.”

“Er, it apparently discusses… having intimate relations with you. In _detail_.”

Arya sends her a very, very unimpressed stare.

Tyrion’s mouth falls open.

Brienne’s heartbeat has suddenly become ten times faster.

“And what have they done with this singer?”

“Nothing, my lady,” Pod says. “I thought it unwise to arrest him before you were made aware of it.”

“You did good. Very well. I think I should take off my armor and we should all listen to this song before jumping to conclusions. My lord, Lady Arya, would you care to come with me?”

“Of course,” Tyrion replies. “Now I _really_ want to hear that, too.”

Brienne goes to change into less recognizable clothes than a white cloak and a white armor, finds a nondescript dark cloak that would cover her face and finds all three of them _plus_ Bronn waiting outside the door — _of course_ Tyrion has warned him. She doesn’t tell him to _not_ come, though, and tells Pod to lead the way.

The tavern in question is well on the outskirts of the city, the less damaged area. There’s a sign reading _Stone Pony_ outside it, fairly shaking and precariously hung.

“Is _that_ the singer?” Brienne asks as they walk inside and notices a brown-haired man in the corner with a lute in his hands.

“That was him, yes,” Pod replies.

“Right,” Bronn says, “should I go up to him and pay for the latest raunchy song of his repertoire?”

“Please do,” Tyrion says, “I knew you’d be useful for something one day.”

Bronn heads for the singer, confers with him for a bit, hands him a few coins and comes back to their side of the room.

The singer clears his throat, says that a customer was so generous to ask for _that_ one song again, people cheer for it, then he starts playing.

Brienne keeps her ears open.

_And_.

“[The blonde woman-knight sits on a northern hill](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGFBzac-gKc%22), snow covering the valley, she blows her horn both loud and shrill, as the rose dies — she blows it East, she blows it West, snow covering in the valley, she blows it where she liketh best, as the rose dies —”

_What in the Seven Hells_ , she thinks, suddenly feeling _very_ uncomfortable. Admittedly, the blonde woman-knight is  _some_ _damning wording_ , but — well. She has been seen in the city. People do know who she is. Except that this is about the _North_ , not about _here_.

The singer goes on.

“The golden lord came to a northern castle, snow covering the valley, when he heard the woman-knight’s horn a-blowing, as the rose dies — 'Would I had that horn a-blowing’, snow covering the valley, ’And that woman-knight for to sleep in my bosom’, as the rose dies —”

Bronn suffocates a bout of laughter. Tyrion’s mouth falls open as they _all_ turn to look at her. Brienne’s face feels _on bloody fire_. Good gods — _the golden lord came to a Northern castle_? With _snow covering the valley_ as the flowers die? And _for her to sleep in my bosom_? This is — this can’t be a coincidence. She doesn’t know if she wants it to be or not, but —

“Scarcely had he these words spoken, snow covering the valley, when in at the door the woman-knight’s broken, as the rose dies — 'It's a very strange matter, fair lord' said she, snow covering the valley, 'I cannot blow my horn, but you call on me’, as the rose dies —”

 

_I would be honored to serve under your command, if you’ll have me_.

 

The memory sticks like a knife in her gut, stabbing it once, twice — _fair lord_? _Golden knight_? Unless it’s a soldier in Winterfell who _knew_ about them or saw them or heard them something like that, it can’t be anyone else… can it?

She holds her breath, and then the singer goes on.

“'But will you go to the godswood’s side?’, snow covering the valley, ’If you will not come, I'll cause you to ride’, as the rose dies — He leapt on his horse and she on another, snow covering the valley, and they rode on to the godswood together, as the rose dies —”

“It _didn’t_ go like that,” Tyrion whispers, “did it?”

Brienne thinks she’s blushing red in the face. “We — might have… gone to the godswood once. For… well. But — I didn’t tell him _that_ , for —”

“Let him finish,” Bronn interrupts her.

Right.

The singer smirks. And _then_ —

“'Lie down, lie down, my lord’ said she, snow covering the valley, ’For we're come to the place where I am to take you’, as the rose dies — 'I have never lain with a knight before’’, snow covering the valley, ’And you shall be my first of them’, as the rose dies —”

Oh.

_Bloody._

_Seven._

_Hells._

She knows she’s gone pale at once.

 

_I’ve never slept with a knight before._

_I’ve never slept with anyone before_.

 

She feels like fainting.

“Lady Brienne?” Tyrion asks as her legs shake. “What’s wrong?”

“That’s _what he told me_ ,” she whispers. “That’s _what he bloody told me when he came up to my room that night_.”

“… For real?” Bronn asks. “Hells, he really was terrible at seducing women.”

“That doesn’t — that’s _exactly what he said_ and no one else could have known. Oh —”

“I told you it was _him_ ,” Arya snorts.

The singer silences the people leering and goes on. Brienne isn’t sure if she wants to hear it.

“‘Let’s go back to the castle, lay your head on my knee’, snow covering the valley, ’That we may rest before I take you again’, as the rose dies — she stroked him so fast the nearer he did come, snow covering the valley, and with her blue eyes smiling, she's lulled him to sleep, as the rose dies —”

Oh for —

She thinks she’s so red in the face she must resemble a ripe strawberry at this point. Oh gods. _That_ had gone — pretty much like that. After that time in the godswood. Oh _gods_. But what they did when they got to her room _after_ —

“Then his own sword-belt, so fast she's bound him, snow covering the valley, to her own bed, leaving him so sore after she had him, as the rose dies — ‘If I was to be your first of them all, snow covering the valley, 'Then lie you here, a husband to your knight’, as the rose dies.”

Brienne grabs the nearest chair and falls down on it.

“Fuck,” she blurts.

Pod whistles. Tyrion whistles. Bronn laughs.

“What,” he asks, “that’s how it went?”

“I think,” she says, “that it’s _fairly obvious_ by now. That — that’s how it went. Gods. Tyrion, it’s him. It _has_ to be him. No one else would have known. I mean — _some_ of that is, uh, very embellished, but —”

“But whatever happened to him, he still remembers fondly that time you tied him to your bed? Well, he’s not so stupid after all,” Bronn grins, and she wants to groan louder, but — no.

No.

“Ser Podrick,” she says, “after the… evening is done, I wish for that man to be brought to the Red Keep. Quietly and without too much noise. Feel free to pay him as much as he likes. Do we have an understanding?

“Absolutely,” Pod nods.

Good.

She _will_ get to the bottom of this.

— —

It’s admittedly somehow satisfying to see the blood drain from the man’s face the moment he’s brought in front of her and he realizes _who_ it is he’s singing about.

“My lady,” he blurts, “I — I had no idea —”

“I know,” she says, taking care to sound as neutral as possible. “And I hold you no ill will. I also won’t forbid you to sing that in the future, but I need you to answer a few questions. _Truly_ , if you will.”

“Of — of course, for what I can —”

“Where does that song come from? I suppose not from _you_.”

“Oh, no. No, it’s — well. I learned it in the Riverlands, where some other bard from Dorne taught me and some northern other singers, too. He said he learned it in the Stormlands where it already was fairly popular. I don’t know how helpful it can be, but he said that it came from this one bard in a company that mostly plays around Summerhall’s ruins and Blackheaven and they hardly move around. That was hearsay, though. I can’t guarantee that.”

“Perchance,” she says, “is it the same bard from that song I’m told exists, about the _blue eyed ser_ going through the ruins of Westeros after the destruction of King’s Landing?”

“That might be,” the man agrees. “I couldn’t say for sure, of course. But that one also more or less spread from there, as far as I know, so — it could be.”

“Thank you,” she says, “you’ve been extremely helpful. You can leave now. And don’t worry about _that_ song.”

“My lady,” the man says gratefully, and runs from the room.

She stares at the closed door.

She takes a very, very deep breath.

She could ignore this. She _could_. She thought she made peace with everything that happened when she sat down and did what she could for both him and her and the man she _knew_ he was and that he could be and filled his pages in the White Book.

But if he’s out _there_ and singing about _her_ for whichever reason —

She needs to know, at least.

“Tyrion,” she says, “I’m going to the Stormlands. I’m sure Pod can keep things under control while I’m gone.”

“Of course,” he says immediately. “I might — I might come with you, if the king gives me leave.”

“Very well,” she agrees. “Let’s go ask him. We leave on the morrow. Lady Arya, would you care to —”

“Of course I’m coming,” she says. “I _do_ have business in the Stormlands, too.”

— —

Bran gives them leave, half-smiling, saying that he knows why they have to go.

They leave at dawn the next day. None of them says a thing as they leave King’s Landing behind. Oathkeeper weights more than usual at her hip.

Gods.

_He’s alive_ , and she doesn’t know what she’s going to do when she faces him again.

— —

That night, they stop at a tavern.

Tyrion asks the singer if he would play this song he’s heard of about the fire of King’s Landing and slips him a few coins.

That one singer gladly accepts, and Brienne doesn’t know if she wants to hear it. But maybe she should. On one side the one she heard in King’s Landing was — she doesn’t know what to think of it. She has no idea. She doesn’t know if she should be flattered, if he did it to make sure she’d find him out, or if she should hate him because not only he left her in tears as he rode off to his inevitable death but now he’s also telling the entire realm of what transpired between them. It makes no sense. If he lived, why would he _not_ look for them but at the same time write songs that they might eventually hear?

Still.

She’s going to hear this other one, too.

The music is not as melancholic as the other one, even if _that_ was supposedly bawdy —

 

[Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed ser?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5al0HmR4to)

_Oh, where have you been, my darling young maid?_

_I’ve stumbled on the side of twelve northern mountains_

_I’ve walked and I’ve crawled on the crooked Kingsroad_ —

 

She almost drops her ale to the ground.

Oh.

_Oh_.

This one isn’t — this one _isn’t_ about when they laid together. Not at all.

She takes another drink, trying to focus on the lyrics.

 

_Oh, what did you see, my blue-eyed ser?_

_Oh, what did you see, my darling young maid?_

_I saw a newborn baby with direwolves all around it_

_I saw a street paved with gold with nobody on it_

_I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin’_

_I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleedin’_

_I saw a white belltower all covered with fire_

_I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken_

_I saw bows and sharp swords in the hands of young children_

_And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard_

_And it’s a hard fire’s a-gonna fall_

 

Gods.

_Gods._

She can believe _he_ would notice all of that. After all, he _did_ sacrifice his reputation once to save that forsaken city, hadn’t he?

But — but why did he make it about _her_? She sounds almost heroic, from this description, and she _never_ set foot in King’s Landing during the fire. She never did.

By the time they get to the ending, she has drank the entire tankard, and her fingers are shaking, and then —

 

_Oh, what’ll you do now, my blue-eyed ser?_

_Oh, what’ll you do now, my darling young maid?_

_I’m a-goin’ back out ’fore the fire starts a-fallin’_

_I’ll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest_

_Where the people are many and their hands are all empty_

_Where the ashes of their bones are flooding their waters_

_Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison_

_Where the executioner’s face is always well hidden_

_Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten_

_Where black is the color, where none is the number_

_And I’ll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it_

_And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it_

_Then I’ll stand on the sea until I start sinkin’_

_But I’ll know my song well before I start singin’ —_

 

“Brienne?” Tyrion asks as she doesn’t even try to stop tears falling from her eyes.

“It’s him,” she says, “it _has_ to be, hasn’t it?”

“Yes,” he agrees at once. “It could only be. That was how that city looked… when the fire happened. He has to be alive.”

“But _why_ wouldn’t he look for you? Or me? I don’t understand. _Why_?”

Tyrion shrugs. “You knew him,” he half-smiles. “Do you think _that_ more likely, or that he would try to disappear because he thought you deserved better and that _I_ did, too?”

He has a point, Brienne has to admit. Gods, that self-sacrificing, self-loathing impossible man _would_ believe that, wouldn’t he?

“But why would he do _this_ , then? Surely he would imagine we would hear.”

“Maybe it’s his way to ask for forgiveness?” Arya asks, not sounding like she cares much either way. “I mean, in a very twisted way, that could be.”

_Then_ Brienne realizes it.

“Oh,” she blurts, fresh tears coming to her eyes, trying to stop them, and it doesn’t really work.

“What’s wrong?” Tyrion asks.

“He knew,” she whispers, barely able to talk. “I mean, not from the beginning, but after — after we, _well_ , were together. We did talk. He knew that when I was a young girl training — my biggest dream was to end up in some song. Not even one about me _only_ , just — you know. I wanted to be in one.”

Arya doesn’t seem so detached anymore as Brienne tries to get a grip on herself.

“Are you saying that —” She starts.

“That my brother figured that she could never forgive him for what he did and so did the next best thing and wrote her a fairly damn good song in which she was at King’s Landing that day even if she technically wasn’t? Well, it sounds _exactly_ like something he _would_ see as a grand gesture. I never knew he was into _writing_ songs, but then again he’s always known a damn great amount of them. Might be he’d find it easy.”

“Gods.” Brienne wipes her eyes with her sleeve, wishing she could stop already. “Just when I thought I _did_ move on he has to — but that’s just how _he_ is, isn’t it.”

“I’m afraid so,” Tyrion chuckles, ordering her some more ale.

Brienne never was much for drinks, but she downs her tankard in a remarkably quick fashion.

Seven hells. Now she’s tracking him down if her life depends on it, and then she’s going to punch him in the face for not finding them the moment he realized he would live.

Then she’ll see.

But that sounds like a damn good plan, if you ask for her humble opinion.

— —

“Heads up,” Hildy tells Arthur as he stares down at his half-filled parchment, “Harrold says he’ll need that new one you’re working on in a couple of weeks.”

“He said in a moon, yesterday.”

“Well, he didn’t know there would be some kind of… event at Summerhall.”

“An _event_.”

“Seems like the new king wants those ruins to be rebuilt for some reason and Harrold’s been writing to other companies and since it’s full of people workin’ on it and maybe settling there, us and some others are spending a few days playin’ for them. So, he wants at least something new and since you said this time it was an actual _story_ —”

“Right, right, got it. It’ll be ready.”

“Sweet. See you at supper.” She blows him a kiss and gets out of the wagon, he blows one back at her as they’ve done for a while knowing perfectly that neither of them means it and then goes back to look at his work. This time he decided that maybe he should make his ser lady more of a protagonist in a straight-up love song — the previous one was raunchy indeed, but he wants her to be in one that’s not just about… well, laying with someone. So he made it up, or at least he started.

For now, he decided that the ser lady should be in love with someone who might seem out of her reach, so at least he _would_ have a story, but her beloved actually _does_ want her back and so he gives her that precious sword he always dreams of, before she leaves to find her luck. He’s _very_ pleased with the sword ideal — it’s in _all_ the other songs with male knights and female ladies, so why not with his female knight and male lord?

Then again, since it has to have a _story_ , he decided that the sword is magic and if her beloved is in danger, the ruby might turn dull so she knows when to come back for him, if she wants to. That was the point he was at.

“So,” he says, glancing at the mass of raven hair resting on his right leg, “how is his life in danger?”

He doesn’t receive an answer that’s not a tug on his wrist.

“Right, right, I got it.” Arthur moves back, sitting up straighter and letting him move on his lap — he moves his right arm around the kid’s waist so he can rest his head in the crook of his neck. “I’m saying he’s been forced to be with another woman and he thinks he’ll die because of it. I’m not hearing objections,” he smirks, and notes it down. He doesn’t know why _that_ just seemed the natural outcome, but it just feels right, _that_ and knowing that his ser lady’s love really only wants _her_ but can’t somehow get out of being with this other woman he’d rather not share anything with.

“Then,” he goes on, not minding that he’s not going to be answered, it helps him figure it out, “of course the ruby goes dull. And she comes back for him, of course she does. That’s what valiant knights do, don’t they?”

He keeps on penning the basic plot down — she goes to his land, finds a beggar, convinces him to swap clothes, walks inside the castle, finds her beloved and they run away together after he throws away all his fancy, golden clothes and follows her outside.

It’s maybe not very _original_ , but — Arthur thinks he really likes it. It’s the kind of love story the ser lady of his dreams would like, he has a feeling. Maybe he could re-use it as a bedtime story at some point. And if she doesn’t exist, even if in his heart he’s sure she does… well, he thinks she’s still deserving of all the songs anyone could write about her, and so he will make sure he never stops doing it.

— —

“Good _gods_ ,” Alyse tells him a few days later as she reads his rough lyrics, “this is getting out of control.”

“How?” Jon protests. “It’s actually engaging. There’s a story behind it, there’s the magic, it’s exactly what sells.”

“Well, if he hasn’t made this girl up, I sure as the seven hells would like to meet her, considering that she sounds like she could solve all of Westeros’s problems by herself.” She scoffs. “It’s cute, though, I’ll give you that.”

“Wow, thank you, I was just waiting for _your_ approval,” Arthur scoffs, and says nothing when she slaps his shoulder and says that he’s hopeless.

“Good thing no one needs _her_ approval,” Jon says. “Right, I guess we should work on this now, Alyse can go worry about her lines.”

“Right. Is the entire… celebration confirmed?”

“Yes,” Jon sighs, moving a few strands of dirty blonde hair away from his face. “For that matter, Harrold says we should probably look more presentable than we’re now for it. Shit, this got long.”

“ _More presentable_?”

“Cutting our hair some, trim our beards, the likes.”

Oh. He hasn’t — well. Done _any_ of that since escaping King’s Landing except trimming what of his beard he could with one hand and the badly sharpened knife he has in the wagon.

“Should be a few days from now, though. I don’t know why he insists on it so much, but apparently celebrations mean people might have expectations or somethin’. So, we’re going over this or not?”

Arthur hands him the lyrics so they can start reviewing the entire thing.

He doesn’t know _why_ —

But he thinks he doesn’t want short hair. It feels wrong.

It feels deeply, _really_ wrong.

Jon said cutting their hair _some_ , though. It probably won’t be a concern. He shakes his head and goes back to worrying about his song. _That_ should be his main priority right now.

— —

Four days later, they’ve taken turns at it — of course _he_ didn’t because he doesn’t have a damned hand, but after they set camp just outside Summerhall’s ruins along with a fair amount of others, everyone else shared duties when it came to _making them look presentable_. Hildy drags one of the mirrors they have in the wagons in front of him so he can take a look — it’s not like he’s much looked at himself, since he started traveling with them, but he is now. She gave his hair a slight trim — before it reached his shoulders, now it’s resting just below his neck.

_Someone could pull at it_ , he thinks, and suddenly he feels like jerking back from the mirror, but then he thinks about that dream he put into music where it was as long as this and his ser lady carded her hands through it and suddenly that unpleasant sensation is gone. She trimmed his beard so that now it’s short and neat, and given how thoroughly they all washed they hair, now both that and his hair shine gold with a few white strands, but — that looks nice, he thinks. The way he has a feeling he could have looked in those dreams.

“Thank you,” he tells her.

“No need for it. Too bad ‘bout that hand, though.”

“ _Too bad_?”

“With that pretty face you have, if we could’ve put you at _acting_ you’d have made us turn some profit for sure,” she winks, “but that’s all right, you have other qualities.”

“I’m beyond honored,” he quips back before she goes to Alyse to have her hair washed and cut.

“Hey,” Will tells him a moment later, walking up to him.

“Is there a problem?”

“No,” he shakes his head. “Just,” he nods towards his left, where Jon has been left to mind the child, “I was talking to Harrold before he went off to discuss engagements and so on, but he was sayin’… at this point you really should name him.”

“Wait, _I_ should?” Arthur asks, his heart suddenly lurching forward. “But — shouldn’t you all —”

“Please,” Will says, “before then he always was with one of his parents, as it should’ve been, and after they died he’s stuck to _you_ more than any of us. And you didn’t even — I mean, you pretty much volunteered for that job and believe me, we’re all grateful because it might not look like it but Hildy is useless at handling kids for more than two hours, you’ve _seen_ Alyse and all of us honestly would have been at a loss.”

“It… wasn’t a hardship?” Arthur weakly says, because it wasn’t.

“Well, that’s the point. If it’s not, he might as well be yours, all things considered, and it doesn’t look like he’s going to _die_ any time soon, and even if he did, well, you’re attached anyway. Just name him yourself and let’s stop pretending that’s not how things went, all right?”

He gives him a pat on the shoulder and goes back to the others.

Oh.

_Oh_.

He supposes — he supposes they _do_ have a point. It’s just, he hadn’t thought — he hadn’t really imagined that they’d think _he_ was — or that they’d let him —

He doesn’t know _why_ that seems to sting so much, why he had never considered it to be _permanent_ , why he had never thought that when the moment came he’d get to choose the name, or that at some point one of the girls wouldn’t decide that it wasn’t _his_ job to take care of him, but knowing it actually might be —

He gets out of the tent. He doesn’t know why he’s crying or why he doesn’t stop for a long time, but then he looks up at the castle’s ruins, at their stone that was once white and now is charred all over where it still stands, and he decides that he _will_ have a name by the time they’re done here.

— —

“You _really_ are taking this seriously, aren’t you?”

Arthur turns to Jon, his ( _his_? at this point he might as well be) kid holding on to his neck as Arthur has him hoisted on his hip with his left hand. “How exactly?”

“Right, guess if you ever knew you don’t remember it.” He looks up at the ruins of the castle they’re in — the rebuilding has started but from the opposite side, so the main hall and its charred stone is still covered in weeds, while the ceiling has been gone for years by now. Everyone walks in and out, so he did, too. He likes the sight of the stars above as the sky turns darker. “That’s where our infamous prince Rhaegar Targaryen came to write his songs.”

“Really?”

“Indeed. On _harps_ , because of course fancy princes don’t lower themselves to other instruments, but — well. He was born here when half of his family and the best Lord Commander the Kingsguard has ever had died in the fire, I guess he thought there was a meaning to it.”

“I — I see,” he says, wondering _why_ hearing it made him feel sad at once, when sure as the seven hells _he_ never knew any Targaryen himself. “Wait, the _best Lord Commander_? You mean the one from —”

“All those songs about him and prince Aegon, later _King_ Aegon fifth of his name? Of course. Duncan the Tall, who else. Huh, now that I think about it he even looked like _your_ ser lady. Anyway, if you ask me? Sounds like _he_ was the best of them all. Anyway, he also died here along with his king and his prince. I did know some songs about it but they’re all so fucking sad I never really felt much need to bring them up.”

Arthur nods, taking it in. “Well, I had no idea.”

“I figured. Well, see if Rhaegar Targaryen’s spirit inspires you some more, how about it?”

He turns his back and goes back to their camp, leaving Arthur staring up at the night sky with _that_ new knowledge.

He goes to sit on the nearest piece of stone, taking in the charred ruins all over again, wondering what it is that _Rhaegar Targaryen_ thought of when he looked at that same sky.

He shakes his head, closes his eyes and thinks of what Jon said before. That Ser Duncan, from what the songs said, _did_ look like his ser lady, that was true. Arthur _had_ liked most of them — they were less grim than average, and admittedly Ser Duncan _does_ sound more impressive than Ser Dayne, as much as Arthur liked that name for himself.

It’s not even a _bad_ name, for that matter. It’s not too _much_ , but it still belongs to what sounds like a just and honorable man and a good knight, and —

Well.

“What do you say,” he whispers, looking down at the kid in his arms who’s staring up at him with green eyes that aren’t the exact same shade as his own but close enough, “does Duncan sound good?”

He smiles.

_Well then_. He thinks he has it.

— —

“I was wondering,” Tyrion asks at the tavern they stop at a day’s ride from Summerhall, “is there a reason for all these people moving around here? This isn’t usually such a crowded area.”

The owner nods as he hands them their food. “Aye, it’s not, but with Summerhall being rebuilt and so on, I think the locals decided to have a gathering.”

“A _gathering_?”

“Aye. From what I gathered someone who runs a mummers’s company started talking to others and spread the word that they’d spend some three days performing for people all around Summerhall in the same place so they’d get more money and so on. I ain’t complaining myself, that means more people come ‘round here, but that’s about what’s happening. They’re starting tomorrow, I reckon.”

“Thank you, you were extremely helpful,” Tyrion tells him, and then meets Brienne’s eyes as he leaves. Arya says nothing before reaching for her food, but she definitely paid attention to _that_ conversation.

“So,” Brienne says, “he _has_ to be there.”

“Most likely,” Tyrion agrees. “If the entirety of mummers in the Stormlands are _there_ , it would be a surprise if he wasn’t.”

“Wait,” Arya interrupts him — she’s obviously trying to overhear the conversation from the group of people sitting in the next table over. They should be singers, too; they have instruments with them.

Brienne keeps her ears open.

“— do you think Harrold Waters’s man will have new songs?”

“Might be. Last I checked Harrold was very happy with his prospects for making some money.”

“He should be, whoever that man is he certainly was a good find.”

Arya nods at Brienne and clears her throat, turning towards them. “I beg your pardon,” she asks, “are you talking about the man who wrote that song about fire falling on King’s Landing?”

“That one,” one of the other men confirms. “Why would you ask?”

“Oh, I was there for it. I found it… very touching,” she goes on. “Pray tell, I was wondering — he was there for it, too?”

“Aye,” one of the other men says, “although — well, it’s a bit of a strange story, I reckon.”

“Really. How?”

“Harrold’s not much of a talker, but from what we gathered he found this man in King’s Landing during the fire. And he didn’t remember anything.”

_What_?

“He _didn’t_ ,” Arya says.

“No. Not a name, not a thing. They took him with, then turns out that he can sing and they let him stay, and man, didn’t Harrold luck out. Right, he lost three people, but that man certainly made him enough money to make up for it. And from what he said might be that he’ll have something new to share, so hey, we’re up to learn.”

“Thank you very much,” Arya tells them, and turns back towards the two of them.

Brienne is just really glad she’s sitting down, because she feels like fainting.

“Well,” Tyrion says, “I _think_ that answers a few questions. Brienne…?”

She shakes her head, trying to stop her hands from trembling. She won’t break down in tears in front of this entire tavern, she _won’t_ , but —

“I can’t — this isn’t —” She blurts, then breathes in, then out, and then — “Tyrion, I had — I spent _months_ wondering why he left like that. I thought he didn’t — I thought in the end I couldn’t be enough for him, I thought that maybe I didn’t know him as well as I figured I did but then — then I decided to honor the man I knew he was and could be and tried to move on, and now I have to hear that _he doesn’t remember anything_ but that somehow… he remembers _me_? And what _we_ had? And nothing else?” At _that_ , she can’t help it — a few tears fall from her eyes and she wipes them hastily, hating how this opened up wounds she had thought she had mended for good or she had _tried_ to mend for good. She’s thinking of how he held on to her wrist when she held his face as he left, she thinks of how _dead_ his eyes had looked when he spoke —

“As the person who has known him the longest,” Tyrion says, “may I give you my guess?”

“Feel free,” Brienne sobs, trying to keep her voice down.

“My brother, he — gods, the only time he was away from Cersei in his life until the Whispering Wood, not counting when he was squiring… was during his service to Aerys.” He takes a drink, then puts it back on the table. “Now, I know that he was an entirely better person than what _she_ made him believe, and I know that he thought he could be that with you, but — it was an entire life’s worth of poison. I don’t think _you_ were the problem, I think _he_ didn’t have enough time to drain it from himself after he left, if I explain myself. And — well. If he has apparently forgotten everything but _you_ , then maybe he _did_ value what you had a lot more than you imagined. Knowing him, he probably knew but thought he didn’t deserve it.”

She wishes it _didn’t_ make sense.

Except that… it does.

Gods, if it does.

“So that means — gods, I have a whole day to reconcile myself with _that_ before we find him. But if he doesn’t remember anything but _me_ —”

“I’d cross that bridge when I get to it,” Arya says. “If anything, he sure as the seven hells doesn’t remember _his sister_ , so I wager you might find some satisfaction in it.”

She snorts into her glass. “I don’t know, but thank you nonetheless.”

She tries to eat again.

And she can’t stop thinking about what she’s going to do tomorrow, because punching him in the face does _not_ sound like a great option right now.

Not really.

— —

The day after, the entire area around Summerhall is crowded with makeshift stages — it seems like a fair, Brienne reasons, and maybe it _is_. They buy some food, careful to try and blend in with the crowd as much as her height stands out, but she came with a dark cloak and no one can see the white armor underneath, nor Oathkeeper at her hilt. Arya asks around as she’s the one least likely to attract attention, and they find out that this Harrold Waters’s company is set to perform all three days, at sundown, in the great hall’s ruins.

“Well,” Tyrion says, “they must be good.”

“Or your brother’s songs are _that_ popular.”

Brienne says nothing. She’s too much in turmoil to even _think_ about speaking. They spend the day around the fair, eating some food here and there, watching performances she doesn’t remember — some people sing both of those songs about _her_ and she takes care to hide her face when they do.

Then, at sundown, they go to find a spot in the great hall.

It’s crowded, around the makeshift stage. They’re indeed popular. All three of them opt not to sit and stand on their feet through the short scenes the other actors put on — they’re good, and they’re probably amusing since everyone around them laughs, but Brienne can’t pay attention to them.

Not until a man with chestnut hair comes up on stage and tells them that their bard has a new song coming up for them. She shakes her head and pays attention to what he said.

“And this time it’s an enticing story,” he grins. “With romance, magic and heartbreak, but don’t worry, we like nice endings. Are you ready?”

The audience is very enthusiastic at the prospect.

The man turns and calls for a Jon and an Arthur to come on stage.

Jon is the musician — Brienne barely notices his dirty blonde hair and brown eyes, because then _Arthur_ shows up and all of her blood drains from her face.

It’s _him_.

Gods, it’s Jaime.

It’s _Jaime_ , it couldn’t be anyone else. He’s thinner than he used to be and he lost half of his muscle, but of course he’d have if he’s not been maintaining it and most likely eating worse than usual, but the face is his, _wholly_ his, and the hair is slightly longer than it was at Winterfell, the beard maybe a bit thicker, but more or less the same. He’s wearing a cambric shirt under a heavier jacket, wool breeches and old boots, and he has nothing hiding his stump on his right wrist.

He sits down on a stool, grins, addresses the crowd, but Brienne barely hears, because there’s just _one_ thing she notices right now.

As in, that for how much his face has gained a few lines, and he might be thinner, and he might not look larger than life now… he looks _content_. There’s no lingering sadness in his eyes, there’s a lighter way in which he holds himself, he’s not moving his right arm as if he’s ashamed of it, he seems less weary, he seems… like an enormous burden has been lifted from his shoulders.

For a moment she thinks, _do I have the right to go up there and take it from him_? Maybe she should pretend this never happened and she should let him live his new life, because after all maybe he deserves some happiness, _maybe_ —

The song starts.

He clears his throat, then he starts singing.

“‘[Young maid fair, young ser free, where were you born, and in what kingdom](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djwvENi7AGw)?’, ‘On a sapphire island I was bred and born, back that island I will return’,” he starts, and suddenly her stomach clenches, because oh, _oh_ , it’s about her again, it’s about _her_ again, he remembers the _sapphire island_ out of all things, and she hadn’t realized he had such a good singing voice but he _does_ , warm and maybe a bit rough around the edges, and he’s _good_ at it, and —

“When they were parting he gave to her, his heart’s true love and a ruby-handled sword, ‘When you look at the ruby and it’s bright and true, you know your lover is true to you — If the ruby be bright and clear, you know I’m constant to my dear, but if the ruby be pale and wan… your lover’s dying with another maid —”

Suddenly, she feels Tyrion’s hand squeeze hers. She looks down at him — his face is pale, his eyes are wide, and she immediately squeezes back, grateful for it, because — gods. That’s Oathkeeper, isn’t it, he remembered _Oathkeeper_ , he did, he _did_ — also, _dying with another maid_? Oh, for —

“She took ship and away went her, till she come to that northern country, when she looked at the ruby, it was pale and wan, she knows he’s dying with another maid. So she took ship and back sailed she, till she come to his own country; she was a-riding over the plain, the first she met was a begging man —”

Wait, _did he want her to come for him and the idiot tried to push her away instead_? Brienne wants to scream, because that’s everything she can deduce from this, regardless of what he remembers or not, that has to be it, and gods, if _he doesn’t even know exactly why he’s even singing it_ but he just _knows_ — she breathes in and out, in and out. She can get through this, she can —

“‘What news, what news, what news?’ cried she, ‘Sad and sorry I’ve to tell to thee; sad and sorry I’ve to tell to thee, today is your true love’s dying day’,” he sings, going a bit faster, the song’s rhythm picking up a bit.

“‘You’ll lend me your begging rig, you’ll put on my riding stage;’ ‘No, the begging rig’s too poor for thee, the riding stage too good for me’ — ‘Be it right, be it wrong, the begging rig it will go on. Now tell me as fast as you can, what is the work of the begging man?’ — ‘You may walk as fast as you will, till you come to the dragon pit, but when you come to the pit’s gate, lean on your staff with a trembling step —”

_The dragon pit_? Oh gods, is he talking about when she told him to _fuck loyalty_ —

“— Beg from the Stranger, beg from the Mother, beg from the highest to the lowest of all, but from them all you need take none, till you come to your love’s own hand.’” He’s _smiling_ as he sings it while the rest of the audience claps along, and she doesn’t know if she can handle this until the end, because it’s not over yet, it’s _not_ , but she has to, even if her heart feels like it’s going to burst all over.

“She stepped on with a fine good will, till she come to the dragon pit; when she came to the pit’s gate, leaned on her staff with a trembling step. Her love come trembling down the stair, gold rings on his fingers, gold bobs in his hair; a glass of wine all in his left hand, all for to give to the begging man —”

_Trembling down the stairs_? That would imply he _didn’t want to go back_ , maybe, if this is what this entire thing is about? But it has to be, doesn’t it?

Brienne doesn’t know if she can hold on until the end. Why couldn’t he _say_ before? Why couldn’t he — why _wouldn’t he_? She shakes her head, tries to pay attention to the rest of the song. Tyrion’s grip on her hand is getting painful, but she’s pretty sure hers can’t be that much lighter.

“Out of the glass he drank up the wine, then she showed him her sword’s hilt; ‘Did you get it by sea? Did you get it by land? Or did you get it from a drowned maid’s hand?’ — ‘Neither did I get it by sea or land,

Neither did I get it from a drowned maid’s hand, I got it from my love in a courting way, I give it to my love on his dying day.”

At this point the entire audience is clapping along and Jaime looks _mighty_ pleased with it, and she can recognize his smile as he flashes it at someone in the first row, and — she doesn’t know how he made this whole thing up. Gods, he certainly has an imagination, but then again… he _did_ listen to the same song _she_ had, and now hasn’t he made her the protagonist of _another one_ , where she… comes off as gallant and strong and gentle the same way she had always dreamed of?

And if he did it _without even remembering the circumstances of how they knew each other_ …

“Gold rings from his fingers he did let fall, gold bobs from his hair he threw against the wall, ‘I’ll follow you forever more, though I’m begging from door to door.’”

At that, she _almost_ lurches forward, almost, because he’s grinning like this is his favorite part of the story, as if _her love_ following the lady knight is the one thing that matters, and —

 

_I would be honored to serve under your command, if you’ll have me_

 

— she wants to scream, _if you wanted to stay that much why didn’t you_ , and then she remembers what Tyrion told her the night before.

She’s not too proud of herself when she thinks that it was a good thing that she never got to see Cersei Lannister in the flesh after the dragonpit.

But it _was_.

She tries to focus on the end, it’s obvious that it’s coming to it —

“She that was the homeliest among them all, now shines the fairest in the hall, she that was single at the break of day… stole her love from his death away.”

Everyone claps as he stands up and bows after he’s done, and the girl who comes in the middle of the crowd with a basket for offers starts hauling a _lot_ of coins. Jaime thanks everyone and says that he might absolutely sing a few others if everyone will hear them.

The crowd cheers.

Brienne almost feels sick.

“Brienne, are you all right?” Tyrion whispers as Jaime sits back down and starts singing _The Bear and the Maiden Fair_ — at least that one isn’t _about her_.

“No,” she replies. “No, I’m not. What do we do now?”

Arya glares at her. “You want to _leave_ now?”

She thinks she’s panicking. She’s pretty sure it hadn’t happened since she was sixteen. Not like _this_ , anyway.

“What right do I have?” She blurts, looking down at the other two. “He’s — he looks happy, he certainly seems fine, he’s — he doesn’t look like he has the weight of the world on his shoulders, _how_ do I even walk up to him and tell him everything?”

Tyrion shakes his head. “Brienne, _don’t_ be as daft as he used to be, I beg you. Have you _heard_ that?”

“I did, but —”

“That _entire song_ was about how he wants you to find him and has wanted you to all along, and now you want to leave? Never mind that — I can’t, if I know that he’s alive. I wouldn’t _tell_ him, of course, but —”

“Brienne,” Arya interrupts. “I’ve regretted — leaving behind my chance at whatever you two have. I don’t know if I can have it back. He’s there _writing songs about you_. You said he knew it’s what you wanted. It means he _knows_ that when he doesn’t even remember his name. You’d be a downright fool if you left now.”

She breathes in and out, in and out, and she sees the girl from the company coming closer to them with her basket.

Either she runs now or she faces him. She glances at him on the stage, that smile still sharp even if less so, his damned _face_ brimming with excitement as he sings, and —

Well.

At most, if he doesn’t remember still, she just won’t tell him. She wouldn’t be so cruel.

The girl arrives in front of them.

“Did you enjoy the show?” She asks as Tyrion hands her a _whole lot_ of coins. “Oh. I guess so. Thank you my lord, I —”

“I beg your pardon,” Brienne says, letting her voice be heard. The girl turns to her. Brienne lowers her hood, showing her face in the light of the torches, and she sees at once as the girl’s grey eyes go wide in wonder that she _knows_ who she is.

“Oh gods,” she says, “you’re _her_ , aren’t you?”

“ _Her_?” Arya quips back.

“Arthur’s ser lady. _Are you_?”

“I am,” she says, not showing the white armor under her cloak. “I am. I — heard the other two songs and — here I am. I — could I see him after he’s done?”

“Are you japing?” The girl exclaims. “Of course you could! You can’t imagine — he’s been hoping you’d come all this time!”

Brienne feels like her knees will give out. “… Truly?”

“Truly. Wait, let’s just move over to the side.”

Brienne nods and follows her out of the crowd, outside of the great hall. “You can come with me, I’ll bring you to the wagons. Let me just give Alyse the basket and I’ll be with you.”

She hands it over to the other actress and runs back to them, herding them out of the ruins. “So,” she says, excitedly, “he’s been talking about you since we found him after the fire.”

“… Has he?”

“Indeed. One week after he woke up, he hasn’t remembered a thing that wasn’t you. _Anything_ he’s remembered since he was with us, it always had something to do with you. Admittedly all of us kind of joke that he might’ve made you up, but he always was sure he hadn’t. Gods, you look exactly like he said!”

“… Like he said?”

“Don’t you think we _all_ wouldn’t recognize you? Tall, strong, bright blue eyes, soft blonde hair, I think any of you would have recognized you in a crowd. Right, let me think — everyone else is back at the castle, and it’s going to be a bit before the show’s over but tell you what, you can all stay in that wagon. That’s mine and Alyse’s, but she won’t mind. The moment he’s done I’m bringing him over and you can see him in his own, how about that?” Then she winks. Oh _gods_.

“That would be… ideal, thank you.”

“Splendid! Just you wait a bit then.” She runs off, and Brienne hoists herself inside the wagon, helping Tyrion up while Arya does the same. When the three of them are inside it, surrounded by folded dresses and play notes, she lets out a breath she hasn’t known for how long she was holding.

“Well,” Tyrion breaks the silence a moment later, “I think that it’s kind of obvious where my brother’s affections lay, at the end of it.”

She wants to cry all over again. “Then _why_ wouldn’t he just say? I _would_ have gone with him. I would have followed him, if he only let me.”

“I told you. It was _all his life._ He _thought_ he was her for most of it. And honestly, if I were you… I would be worrying about the future, not the past.”

She snorts. “I took a vow, you know.”

“And since when did _he_ keep it, when it came to Cersei? Never mind that I am sure we can find some loophole around it.”

“Oh, how about you just do away with it?”

“… Excuse me?” Brienne asks, turning towards Arya.

“It’s a dumb vow. It’s not like being chaste or not means you cannot _be a knight_. Also, my brother is the damned king, just ask him to do away with that vow and make it official, who is going to tell him no? The Small Council? Oh, wait, _you_ are the Small Council. Anyway, I don’t think _that_ is your problem.”

… It’s a point, Brienne concedes.

“Your problem is — what do _you_ want?”

Brienne wishes Arya hadn’t pinpointed it so fast.

She breathes in.

She wishes it was a hard answer.

She remembers that month they spent in Winterfell when she thought she could keep him, the way he’d smile at her when she woke up or the way he would when he woke up after her and he’d see her staring at him in her bed, she remembers the way his hand shook when he touched her the first time, she remembers the way he moaned inside her mouth, she remembers how his back felt as she molded her frame against it, she remembers that his damned feet were always cold and she had to warm them up every time before he fell asleep, she remembers how they’d talk into the night as that happened, she remembers the whispered confessions they shared as they fell asleep, and that endless pit of _need_ that she thought she had shut closed after his supposed death is suddenly wide open again.

“I want him,” she blurts, wiping at her eyes. She feels Tyrion’s hand on her wrist. She doesn’t shrug it away.

“Then,” he tells her, “I strongly advise you to go get him. No sense in denying the both of you what you _obviously_ want, right?”

She nods, trying to get herself under control. “Uhm, if he doesn’t remember any further when he sees me or — I don’t _know_ , what should I —”

Tyrion smiles, shaking his head. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. Admittedly, if he forgot anything pertaining to _our entire family_ , I can hardly fault him.” He snorts, Brienne follows and Arya sort of does, too, and they say nothing more until the girl from before opens the flap of the wagon some time later. She’s holding a young boy in her arms, has to be around two years old, maybe.

“Is he yours?” Brienne asks.

She shakes her head. “No, his parents died in the fire. But I figured — never mind, you’ll know soon. Will you two be all right with waiting a bit?”

“Of course,” Tyrion asks. “She should go first. We’ll entertain ourselves, don’t worry.”

“Very well. My lady —” The girl starts, and then notices Brienne’s armor under the cloak. “Oh. _Oh_. Oh gods, I am so sorry, I didn’t know —”

“Please,” Brienne interrupts her, “I — I was _not_ , when he knew me. And I tried to keep it hidden for a reason. Don’t worry. It’s all right. Just — let me see him.”

“Of course,” she says, smiling. “Just come down.”

Brienne does, and the girl leads her towards a nearby wagon. “Everyone else is still back in the castle, they had to rehearse. They’ll be back in a while, but I’ll tell them to leave the both of you alone as long as you need.”

“Thank you — uh, what’s your name?”

“Hildy,” she smiles.

“And _he_ is?”

“Oh, I think you should hear it from Arthur.”

“… About _that_ , how did that name come to be? Because it’s not his own.”

“We figured. Well, he was learning songs when we took him in, found one about Ser Arthur Dayne slaying the Smiling Knight, decided he liked it and went for it.”

Brienne is _not_ going to cry.

Not yet.

“Thank you. Uh, should I just —”

“Wait. Arthur! Someone in the crowd wanted to talk to you, can I send them in? I have the kid, don’t worry.”

“All right,” Jaime replies from within, and Brienne doesn’t know if she can handle this, but gods she _will_ —

“No, wait,” he says, “I’ll come out myself, no reason being this cramped in here.”

“I’ll go back to mine then,” Hildy says, and heads back for the other wagon. Brienne stands out of Jaime’s, still as a statue, until she sees his back coming out of the flaps, and his feet going down the small ladder leading inside it, until they hit the ground.

“Very well,” he says, turning towards her, “what can I do for —”

Brienne says nothing as he stops dead in his tracks the moment he sees her.

For a long, long moment he stares at her with large, disbelieving eyes, his lips parting, and gods, he looks amazed, as if he can’t believe this, and her hands are itching to reach out and touch him but she can’t, not when she doesn’t know if he _knows_ who she is or not, and then she sees that his eyes are getting _wet_ , and —

“Oh,” he whispers, unbelievingly, almost adoringly, and she doesn’t know if she can take it, taking a step closer, and his eyes are wide as he looks up at her, sounding like he’s just been handed everything he’s ever wanted, and her eyes are burning and her hands are shaking but his left is, too, and she can see his mouth moving as if he wants to say something but _can’t_ , and she’s about to speak herself but she’s not sure she wants to break the moment yet —

And then his lips break into a shaky, bright smile that she thinks she’s seen on his face a handful of times, except that now it’s lighter and his entire face is brimming with joy, and then he does talk, and Brienne doesn’t know what to expect, doesn’t know what he’ll say, doesn’t know anything except that this is _not_ how she had envisioned this happening, and then she hears that voice she never quite forgot speaking to _her_ only, and he says —

And he says —

 

“I dreamed of you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cookies for whoever guesses the easter egg that shows Exactly What Kind Of Musicians I Like that I dropped in the middle of this thing. ;)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> .... AAAAAND HERE WE GO. HAVE YOUR ENDING GUYS this thing was supposed to be overall 15k at most and it's twice as long - the things I do for spite I guess. HAVE FUN I HOPE YOU LIKE IT and I hope you find it a satisfactory reward for that cliffhanger I left you with. ;) Have your bunch of fluff thrown upon you, hopefully I fixed everything I could conceive fixing :PP
> 
> Also: by now I'm _obviously_ in the gutter when it comes to what I was listening to while writing this, so beware that the barely-rewritten-song-featuring-in-this-chapter is Bob Dylan's [_Shelter from the Storm_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12rUOLtbQDk) which ALSO APPARENTLY REALLY FIT AND ONLY NEEDED MINOR EDITS TO WORK. Also yes I love that song I don't make the rules.
> 
> Of course, nothing is mine, the song is his, they're GRRM's, if the show was mine they'd have gotten married in episode four and the last two would have been wildly different but what can we do other than waiting for the real book ending, right? ;) <3

When Arthur’s feet hit the ground and he turns to face whoever Hildy brought from the crowd, for a moment he wonders if somehow he fell asleep in the wagon and he’s actually dreaming this.

Then he realizes that _no_ , it’s not the case and —

And there _she_ is.

For a moment, he honestly feels like any word has flown away from his mouth as he lets it fall open and takes the sight of _her_ in — gods, in his dreams she was magnificent, but in _this_ light she’s even more of a beauty than he recalled. She’s as tall and broad as he had dreamed of, but her eyes

 

( _the exact shade of sapphire blue he remembered_ )

 

look maybe larger, and they’re staring at him as if she can’t believe he’s in front of her, and her hair… gods, her hair is _longer_ — in his dreams, it was short, maybe long enough to run his fingers through it ,and it stuck to the sides of her face, but now it’s grown out quite some, into blonde soft strands, slightly wavy, that fall around her ears and get to the middle of her neck, and it suits her very much. He wants to tell her, but somehow that doesn’t seem appropriate and so he says nothing, feeling that his left hand is shaking wildly and not doing a thing to stop it.

 _Gods_ , he thinks, _has this wretched land ever seen a truer knight than this_ , because what else should he think when she’s in front of him, standing tall, wrapped in that blue cloak with a sword hilt peeking from underneath and _oh_ , it has the ruby handle, so _that_ was true as well, and she’s still staring at him so intently he could faint from it, and then he _finally_ takes in that those songs actually _did_ bring her to him, that his ser lady is finally in front of him again and she definitely _does_ know him, and he can feel himself grinning harder than he thinks he’s ever done, and there’s just one thing he can tell her.

Just one.

“I dreamed of you,” he blurts, not knowing where exactly that comes from, just that it feels _right_ , and at that she lets out a small sob and takes a small step closer to him, and he can see that her hands are trembling and he wants to know why —

“Gods, it’s really you,” she says, sounding astonished, and her voice washes all over him like those calm blue waves washed over the sands of that sapphire island in his dreams, exactly the same as he recalled it, the same that whispered to him every night when his nightmares would turn into dreams of those waters, and gods, he wishes he wouldn’t have to ask her for her name because _that_ hasn’t come to him yet, but —

“About _that_ ,” he says, not quite sure of how to approach the subject, “I guess you might be… more knowledgeable than I am.”

She reaches up, wipes at her eyes. “Well, last we saw each other, your name wasn’t Arthur.” She sounds disbelieving that she’s having this conversation, but she seems like she has taken a hold of herself. For a bit.

“Then — well, this one suits me fine, but it doesn’t feel _right_ yet —”

She shakes her head, looking at him almost fondly, his heart skipping a beat or ten at _that_ —

“Jaime,” she says, her voice suddenly shaking, as if she’s _remembering_ something that he most likely doesn’t, “your name is Jaime.”

In another life, he’d have minded that she didn’t give him a surname —

But _now_ he doesn’t because suddenly _that_ feels right, the way _Arthur_ quite hadn’t, and the way she says it, so soft and full of awe and reverence, it makes _something_ shift inside of him, a certain warmth filling up his chest, and he feels like maybe he told her that same thing once, but he can’t quite pinpoint why or how, and then suddenly it _comes_ to him —

 _Brienne_!

_No, that wasn’t it —_

That — that wasn’t _her_ voice, it was another woman’s, and the rest isn’t clear at all, but —

She opens her mouth.

“Wait,” he says, breathing in and out, in and out, “… _Brienne_?” He tries it out, and it feels right, wholly and utterly _right_ , and then a few tears fall from her eyes and she nods, wiping at them, and he kind of wants to do that but he has a feeling he shouldn’t, not until he’s sure she wants him to, and she’s smiling slightly as she looks back at him.

“Yes,” she says, and then suddenly her smile disappears, and — “Did you remember anything else? They told me that —“

He shakes his head. “No,” he says. “I — remembered that just now. I don’t know how it was that I learned it, but — there was another woman with us?”

“There was,” she confirms, softly. “Nothing else?”

He shrugs. “Well, do you happen to come from an island? Or did I make that up?”

“Yes,” she says. “Tarth, actually.”

That — sort of does ring a bell. As if he’s _seen_ it. Well, he must have, if he dreams about _that_ every night or about it, right?

“Then — well. Uh,” he thinks he’s going red in the face. “I suppose you heard… _all_ those three songs, haven’t you?”

“I have,” she agrees. “And in another circumstances I’d have asked you what you were thinking of before informing the entire realm of what exactly we used to do behind closed doors, but all things considered, I might let it slide.” She sounds almost amused now, and gods he wants to kiss her, he _does_ , but she’s not saying he can and so he won’t, not until he’s sure.

“In my defense,” he says, not exactly meaning it, “I couldn’t even know if I made you up or not. Uh, perchance, did you ever tell me to live, fight and take revenge at some point in our lives?”

She makes a _pained_ face. “I did,” she whispers. “After — after you lost that hand, but — I suppose you don’t remember _that_ , do you?”

“No,” he shakes his head. “Do I want to?”

Her eyes turn _more_ pained. “Let’s say that sometimes I wish _I_ could forget it,” she admits. “But if you want to know —“

He shakes his head. He’s barely _thought_ about that hand. He doesn’t mind that it’s not there. He never knew the difference, or at least he doesn’t remember knowing the difference. He thinks he’s not in a hurry to know. “It’s all right,” he says, “I haven’t thought much on it since… since.”

“Jaime —”

He has to bite down a pained noise from escaping his throat — the way she calls him like _that_ with such reverence and as if she’s only too glad she has the chance to call him by it in the first place, the way she says it, it feels so right, and so _that_ was his name, his true one —

“— can I ask you something, before… the rest?”

“Anything,” he says at once. Gods, he wants to touch her _so much_ —

“How — what exactly do you recall? Not counting me or… well. What we used to do. From before, I mean. And after.”

He shrugs. “I remember _you_. And your island. And your sword and armor. And those few things you told me. That’s… about it. I mean, sometimes… certain things feel right or wrong in ways that make me think have to do with something that happened to me before, but I couldn’t say _why_. That said… the first thing I recall is waking up in King’s Landing under some rubble. I was in some castle, I think, and there was some dead woman next to me —”

“… _Some dead woman_?”

“Should I know who she was?” He asks. He hasn’t thought about her since he gave Harrold that bracelet, truly. He never felt the need. Why would he? He didn’t know her, he didn’t know why he was near her, he barely even saw her face.

“… Never mind,” Brienne says, “go on.”

“I got out of the rubble,” he shrugs. “Well, I did because I heard you telling me to live and take revenge, truth to be told. I didn’t even know what it was about but I felt like it was the right thing to do. I managed to run out of the city and I saw the others in the company trying to get out. I had taken some bracelet from — well, the dead woman, figuring I might need to buy my way out. I did, and I never quite left. Then it turned out I wasn’t too bad at singing, their singers both died, I figured I could try my hand at it and… well. On one side I thought there _should_ be songs about you, from what I remembered. On the other… I couldn’t know if you were real or not, but if you were it was worth to try and see if hearing them you might find me.”

“And how has life been treating you? Regardless from —”

He doesn’t know why she’s asking _that_ , but she does sound extremely interested in it.

All right then.

“Well, it’s not like I recall how it was before, but… I’m good at what I do, they’ve been good to me, I could have done entirely worse. Uhm, and I don’t know if the two of us were… I mean, were we wed?”

At _that_ , she bites down on her lip. “No,” she says. “No, we were not.”

He nods, feeling relieved that if they weren’t then he most likely doesn’t have some bastard son he left her before losing his memories, but at that point he _does_ tell her that he more or less acquired one, and the moment he mentions who he named him after —

She bursts out in tears.

“What’s wrong?” He asks, wishing that he could do _something_ , anything to make it better, wondering why _that_ set her off like that.

“Well,” she sobs, “I think — it should be me telling you something I haven’t until now.”

She opens her cloak —

 _Showing a white Kingsguard armor underneath_.

But it’s not just _that_.

Because if the illustrations from those books Jon and Will have in their trailer are true, that’s —

That’s a _Lord Commander’s_ armor, not a regular one — the sigil is larger than he remembers it being on regular sworn brothers, he thinks, and of course _she_ would somehow be _it_ , he doesn’t know how those news haven’t reached them yet, a Lady Commander would be something the entire realm would know about, but given where they are and how they’ve spent the last few months — as in, completely out of contact with the rest of the other six realms beyond speaking to other singers and mummers — maybe it’s understandable.

He feels a pang of disappointment for a second, because of course if she took _that_ vow it means that whatever they had before is off limits, and he spends a moment feeling relieved that he hadn’t tried to kiss her, but it goes away in a moment, because gods, _of course_ she of all people would be in _the Kingsguard now_ , wouldn’t she?

“Somehow,” he says, “that doesn’t come as a surprise.”

“… It _doesn’t_?”

He shakes his head. “I’ve dreamed of you this long, I’ve _seen_ you now, if you’re anywhere like my gut says you are, then there’s no one fitter for _that_ role, I think. I mean, I _did_ spend months telling them that you must have been the greatest knight to ever grace this realm, seems like I was right.

 

( _He can’t know that right now Brienne wants to scream_ to the Seven Hells, _you_ knighted me, _you_ did, _you_ did, _that she wants to tell him that it was_ his _job before hers, that she swore to herself that she’d turn it back into a honorable institution the same as she knew_ he _would have wished to in life, one that would never again turn so wretched that its commander would let a fifteen year-old join or that he would let happen to_ anyone _what happened to Jaime himself under Aerys, and she can’t because what right does she have to burden him with something that she now realizes he might have wished to forget for his entire life_?)

 

I’m wondering why not all of Westeros knows, though.”

She shakes her head. “The Small Council hasn’t been finalized yet and the official coronation hasn’t happened yet. We are trying to get everything under control, that’s why I think. But — admittedly, I accepted the offer because I thought you were gone for good.”

“I imagine I was… a soldier or something before…?”

“Or _something_ ,” she half-cries. “Jaime —”

Gods, the way she says _his name_ , the way she _does_ —

He doesn’t think before speaking. Not for one second.

“My lady,” he interrupts her, “before we go on, I think I might just have one request of you. If you would be so kind.”

“… Do ask,” she nods.

“I wouldn’t presume — I mean, you took a vow. I might remember little, but I know what it means. But — if you’d let us come with you, I just — I don’t think I can just let you go without meeting you anymore now that I’ve seen you again. I wouldn’t ask you to take back up whatever it is that we had in the North, because I suppose it was over there, but —”

“You _aren’t_ saying,” she interrupts, “that you’d just leave everything or try to make a case for the whole lot of you to move to King’s Landing or the likes so you’d be _near_ me without — wanting anyone else?”

He doesn’t know why her eyes are filling up with tears all over again.

“I can’t really imagine wanting anyone else,” he shakes his head. “And I would. I couldn’t ask you to break —”

“Oh,” she says, “ _fuck vows_ ,” and for a moment he’s startled, but then —

 

(You impossible arse, _Brienne hasn’t blurted at him_ , you don’t even remember being in the Kingsguard and you just about said you’d go through that all over again even if you don’t know you did it once already _, and she just wants to break down in tears because of course he’s the usual, impossible, honorable idiot she fell in love with not even realizing when that exactly happened, of course he wouldn’t even blink before putting someone else’s happiness before his own, and he doesn’t deserve to spend his new,_ good _life waiting after her the same way he did with his sister, or would she be any different from her, and Brienne wants to think that she couldn’t do to him what Cersei Lannister had done, and she couldn’t live with herself if she did such a thing —_

 _Never mind that she did tell Tyrion and Arya before. She doesn’t want what he just asked for, she wants_ him _, just him, only him_ —)

 

— then she’s moved forward and she’s taken his face in her hands and she’s leaned slightly downwards and he’s thrown his arm around her waist and his hand at the side of her face without even thinking, muscle memory taking over as he _feels_ this is not their first kiss but it might as well be because he’s only ever dreamed of it, and then she’s kissing him like the need is consuming her, and he immediately closes his eyes and kisses her back, once, twice, and the way she’s moving her tongue makes him moan inside her mouth at once, and oh, right, she _would_ know how he likes to be kissed now, wouldn’t she —

He reaches up, grasps at her soft, blonde strands, relishing in how she’s taking control of it, in how thoroughly she’s moving her lips against his, how intently, her hands cradling his face, and when they part for air he looks at her, and he feels like all breath has left his lungs —

Her thumb moves against his cheekbone, once, twice, and he leans into it at once, his wrist going to her wrist, holding on to it, hard, and somehow this sounds familiar, too, but nothing comes to mind, no flash, no pieces of exchanged words, nothing, and then she makes another sound in the back of her throat —

“I _missed_ you, you idiot,” she says, and then she’s shaken her head and he’s sure she might kiss him again, but instead she just moves her hands down to his shoulders and wraps her arms around him and hauls him in — he immediately hugs her back, his left hand buried in the hair at the back of her head.

And —

Oh.

She’s broader than he is, of course she is _now_ , if she ever wasn’t, and her hands are warm and _strong_ as they grasp the small of his back and bury themselves in his hair — he moves his head to her shoulder, letting it fall on it, arching into her touch when she starts carding her shaking fingers through his hair, and maybe he’d prefer that she was wearing no armor because he can’t feel her, not _completely_ , but it’s enough, and oh, he’s never felt more at peace anywhere else. He breathes her in, once, twice, rubbing his cheek against the hollow of her neck, marveling at how she feels like _home_ , finally, and he doesn’t think he ever wants to leave —

“And he never wanted to leave,” he hums softly under his breath, and at that Brienne moves back, looking at him with wide, wet eyes, her tentative smile gracing her lips again.

“You remember _that_?” She asks, softly.

“I _know_ that song,” he shrugs. “I don’t know where I learned it, but I do. Brienne —”

“Jaime,” she interrupts, “there are other things I should tell you, and I haven’t come alone, and we should talk, but — just know that if at the end of the day you want to — to stay with me, you _can_. And we’ll find ways around that stupid vow. We might even do away with it. But I couldn’t live if I knew you were throwing half of your life away for me, all right?”

He nods, feeling so floored he can’t even speak.

“Very well,” he nods, feeling his eyes burn, “but — after _that_ — I can’t — we can talk later,” he blurts, hoping she understands, and a moment later the blue of her eyes somehow looks _scalding_ , even if it’s not the word that should go together with it, and then she nods once, twice. Then towards the wagon for the third time, her mouth openly grinning for the first time since they met again, and gods but he wants to _drown_ in it.

“Well, there’s no one inside now, is it?”

— —

Brienne _does_ manage to keep herself somehow in check until she has the armor removed — Jaime helps her with what he can with just the left hand, but admittedly he seems more skilled with it _now_ than he was before, maybe because he doesn’t have that damned golden one weighing on the right side and he’s not treating the lack of his right like it’s some kind of curse —, but after then, she shakes her head when he tries to take off his own shirt. She helps him out of it, same as she had that first time, and he’s still looking at her like he can barely believe his luck, and then he openly stares as she takes off her shirt — her breasts are still small and she has a feeling that in all the time she’s spent training lately she might have put on _some_ more muscle if it was possible, but he’s looking at her as if she’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen and gods, how hilarious is it that _now_ she can entirely believe he thinks that?

“What,” she tells him, throwing both shirts to the side as he leans down on one of the cots, presumably his, “did this look the same in your dreams?”

He shakes his head. “I think I much prefer reality,” he grins. “So, it seems like it’s my destiny to sleep with _knights_?”

“Well,” she scoffs, getting out of her breeches and kicking off her boots as he does the same with his, “it seems like it’s my destiny to only sleep with _you_ , so I suppose we’re even.”

“Wait,” he says, looking incredulous, “are you serious?”

“… Yes?” She says, hating how her heart beats so _fast_ at his disbelief.

“You only ever slept with _me_?”

“Yes,” she blurts, holding his stare. “And… it was a recent development. Before you, well, presumably died.”

She wishes she could laugh at the almost outraged way he’s looking at her. “ _How_ ,” he says. “I mean, fine, what do I know, but you’re — I couldn’t believe how lucky _I_ got in those damned dreams, and no one else ever —”

“What can I say,” she says, a bout of fondness taking her as she shakes her head and moves to straddle him, her hands reaching down for his face again, “it seems like you have better taste than _most people_.”

“Seems to me like I really fucking do,” he says, and the way he smiles up at her is soft, so soft, and she has to lean down and kiss him again, and again, one of her hands on his face and the other at the side of his neck, and when he immediately throws his right arm around her waist, not giving a damn about the stump differently from what he used to do in Winterfell, her heart skips a beat or two, and she takes it slow even if she’s bursting with need, but —

But they have time now, she knows, and it’s been a hell of a long time, and she needs to learn him again even if he’s not even _that_ different — sure, he’s slimmer, he lost muscle, he’s a bit thinner, he has scars all over his mid-chest, and he groans when she touches them, but other than that he’s _Jaime_ , and he’s alive, and he’s _with her_ , and then she realizes how _bad_ those scars were, and that he could have died from _them_ , and so she leans down and kisses her way down his chest, her tongue running over all the older ones on the way until she reaches his stomach, and then she dutifully runs her tongue over each single one of them, once, twice, thrice, kissing them all over, feeling their roughness under her tongue, until he’s arching up under her and his hand is in her hair and he’s moaning her name over and over and _over_.

Gods, she hadn’t thought that it would feel _good_ to taste them, but then he groans out loud, and she stops —

“No,” he says, urgently, his eyes wider than before, suddenly wet, “go on, _please_ —”

“What’s wrong?” She asks, wondering if she shouldn’t have done it, because he did sound distressed for a moment.

“It’s just, they always felt _wrong_ , like they weren’t supposed to be there, but — but if you do that they’re not anymore.”

Brienne decides to _not_ let that get to her lest she bursts out in tears while feeling also like her blood is boiling so hot she can’t stand it, and so she nods and does that again, slower, pressing a line of kisses into each single one of them, whispering his name against the angry, red skin that goes all through his waist. Gods, she hadn’t thought she’d get to have _this_ again, not with _him_ , and she had tried to not think about how he used to arch under her touch or how he’d moan her name or how sometimes he’d touch her like he couldn’t believe he _could_ , but now it’s happening all over again and now there’s the added factor that whenever she looks up at him he still has that dazed, amazed look to his eyes like not only he can’t believe that but like it’s a damned dream come true and for him it most likely _is_.

Oh, she has a feeling that if things go the right way none of them will have to go without, but now she doesn’t really have time for _that_ , and so she lets herself grin as she lifts her head, feeling his legs spread wider. Good.

“I think,” she said, “that I _do_ remember something else you liked very much.”

“Such as…?” He whispers, as if he’s still taking in that _this_ is happening.

“Such as _this_ ,” she says before spitting on her fingers and leaning her head down. She’s ready for it the moment he arches upwards when she takes him into her mouth _just_ as she slides a couple of fingers inside him — she starts slow, figuring that if it’s been as long for him as for her it might be the case, but he’s screaming her name all over again and apparently losing his memories doesn’t mean that he doesn’t like it anymore when her fingers find their way inside him along with the right place to touch, nor that he’s not desperately trying to _not_ fuck her mouth too harshly, but they had practice back in the day. She can take it.

She tries to balance the rhythm, sucking him off slower when she fingers him faster and the contrary, trying to make it last as long as she can even if she has a feeling he won’t hold on for long — he tugs at her hair not long later, and she thinks he’s telling her he’s close, but good, that’s exactly what she wanted, and so she licks under the head of his cock and thrusts her fingers inside him harder and he’s arching up a moment later, coming inside her mouth in a rush, moaning so loud that she’s pretty sure everyone around the camp must have heard him and gods _she doesn’t care_ , not at all. She swallows, tasting salt in the back of her mouth and in her tongue and not caring a whim, and she only moves away when he’s spent — she breathes in and out, wipes at her mouth and looks back up at him, and now his face is flushing under his beard, and he’s breathing in hard, in and out, and she crawls back up on the bed and kisses him again, and again, and his hand immediately goes up to the side of her head as he reciprocates, and it’s less heated than before, but he’s smiling into it, wait, no —

“What’s that smirk now?” She asks as she moves away and takes a good look at him.

“Maybe I didn’t remember _that_ ,” he says, his eyes sparkling, “but if you don’t think I’m not writing a song about it, too, you’re wholly wrong. _Ser_.”

She wants to ask, _do you remember that you liked calling me like that when we were —_ , but she doesn’t, because the way he’s smiling smugly up at her, yes, she has a feeling he remembers even too well.

She scoffs, shaking her head. “You’ll do no such thing.”

“Excuse me, I absolutely will.”

“I can’t _believe_ you wrote that first one, for that matter,” she groans, shaking her head.

“It was one of my better efforts, I think,” he says, and gods, the way he’s looking up at her, his grin showing a hint of teeth is going to be the end of her, isn’t it, “and what I recalled still pales in comparison to the real thing, but I swear I’ll keep it less obvious.”

“Fair,” she concedes, because a part of her maybe _did_ like it, deep down. After all, after years of hearing that if a man would ever bed her he’d do it with her eyes closed and she could only hope for that much, it _did_ feel good, maybe, to know that he would take care to tell everyone how it’s such a wrong notion. But she’s not going to tell him that _now_.

She reaches down, her hand brushing a few strands of golden hair from his foreheads, feeling him arch into it at once, and gods, she’s _burning_ with need, and so she leans down and kisses him again, and again, and then his left hand has ended up in between her legs and she immediately sits up straighter so that he can touch her, and he smiles slightly as she moans his name the moment his fingers slip forward, his thumb running over the outside of her cunt while two other fingers move their way inside, but after a short while he shakes his head and nods down at her and she’s _not_ blushing, for once, as she sits up on her knees and moves forward so he can slide down in between her legs — his left hand goes to her hip, his right wrist around her waist where she keeps it _there_ , and then his mouth is on her cunt, his tongue is licking at her again and again and _again_ with such a driven intent that she has to scream his name as loud as she had screamed his before. She runs her hands through his hair as his tongue works his way inside her, the way he used to like back in the day, and he can feel him shudder before burying his head inside her legs again, and she doesn’t last long either, not when she’s been starving for it and for _him_ for this long, and he doesn’t move an inch when she peaks, her fingers losing their grip on his head just slightly, and when he moves away from under her his beard is sticky and his mouth is, too, but he looks mighty pleased with himself.

“Hm,” he grins, “I _did_ think I remembered that.”

“Hilarious,” she breathes, letting herself move down, lying next to him, catching her breath. She cups the side of his face again, taking him in, his blown-out eyes, his kiss swollen lips, the way he still looks at her like she’s everything he could have ever asked for, and then he turns and kisses the palm of her hand and she _really_ has to keep a check on herself to not start crying again.

She takes a breath, then two, then three, then she realizes that she can’t postpone the necessary much more.

She moves closer to him, her arm going to his waist, holding him loosely. “Jaime, I — not that I can’t wait to do it again right now, but never mind that I need a moment and you might, too, there are a few things you should know. Before we do anything else.”

“I’m listening.”

“Well, never mind that I should like to know everyone else that’s not _Hildy_ , uh, I did not come alone.”

His eyes go wide. “You brought someone else who… knew me?”

She nods. “Who probably heard us. Gods, this is going to be embarrassing, but — never mind that. I don’t know if I should tell you before or not, but —”

“No,” he says at once. “I’d… rather see if I remember for myself. Hells, maybe it’s cowardly, but —”

“Jaime, you’ve always been a lot of things, but a coward was never one of them,” she says, reaching out and putting a hand on his elbow, running her thumb underneath it. He sighs, moving closer.

“It’s just…” He breathes in, looks up at her. “I told you, I have those moments where I feel that something is familiar and I should remember it but then it’s… either it feels wrong or it’s upsetting as hell, and meanwhile the things I _do_ remember are… the ones I _want_ to. And unless there are things I should make up for personally or that I left unresolved before, well, whatever happened… I don’t know if I want to know. Does that make sense?”

She nods once, figuring that she _does_ get the point. Hadn’t she considered not walking up to him at all because she wanted him to — keep on looking as happy as he did on that stage? Now she realizes that it was a mistake because he looks so beside himself with it now that she can’t even imagine how she’d considered it, but still. If she was him, she wouldn’t want to remember _Aerys Targaryen_ , considering what did it do to him the first time around.

“Well, I suppose we’ll go out and we’ll see, but for what it’s worth… we knew quite a lot about each other back in the day. If you don’t remember and you ever want to know, I will tell you. If you don’t… it’s your choice. Does that sound like a good deal?”

“Yes,” he nods, almost gratefully. “I mean, I know how it sounds, but… you know, when they told me I should name the kid already, the one who’s been with me all along —”

“What happened?” She asks, hoping it’s not —

“I just — I realized I had assumed it was temporary and I’d never have a right to it even if looking at it… it might’ve been kind of obvious. All things considered. And I spent… I don’t know how long being upset at it and I didn’t know _why_ and I hated every second of it, and it was just leaving me with a bad taste in my throat, and I didn’t… like it at all. I’ve had a few other moments like that, and I hated all of them. Do I really want to know why?”

Brienne’s stomach contorts itself remembering what he told her about the children he never got to father, of how the mention of his sister’s unborn child, used to cause grief to cloud his eyes, how he said he stayed because she promised he could father _that_ one, at least, and gods, _of course_ he doesn’t want to know why, of course —

“You would have had your reasons,” she agrees, “and — maybe not. But it should be your choice, and for one I’m glad you had your chance. And — gods, just get over here,” she says, raising up her arm, holding him close the moment he holds her first, his grip strong even if his hand is shaking, and then she moves her hips at the shell of his ear —

“Just,” she tells him, “when I thought you were dead, I thought that even if I might move along with my life, there could never be anyone who was like _you_ , to me. And gods, at the core you haven’t — you haven’t changed at all, all things considered. I’ll have you in whichever way you are. Clear?”

“Clear,” he blurts, and she thinks he’s crying, but she might be, too, and so she holds on to him and decides that they can wait for the two of them outside for a little while longer.

— —

Good thing that Tyrion had been preparing a few different speeches while coming all the way here — since he had figured that if Brienne met Jaime first they would _never_ be done shortly, it most likely would be down to him to explain the rest of the company what in the seven hells is actually going on here.

Goes unsaid that as he finishes speaking, he has seven faces staring at him as if they all want to faint.

“You’re telling me,” the owner, Harrold, says when no one else speaks, “that we rescued _Jaime Lannister_ from King’s Landing?”

“That’s exactly what I’m telling you,” Tyrion says.

“And that his ser lady is _the bloody Lady Commander of the Kingsguard_?” The other girl, Alyse, looks on the verge of collapsing. Hildy is patting her on the back while holding up the black-haired kid that his brother apparently went and accidentally acquired, not that Tyrion is surprised — Jaime was always good with children, _him_ first and foremost back in the day, of course he would.

“Hey,” the playwriter, Will, says, “technically _he_ is the Hand of the King, too, for that matter. I have a feeling we’re way out of our league here.”

“Thank you for noticing,” Tyrion half-grins. Arya is saying nothing but if he looks at her from the corner of his eye he can see she’s… somehow greatly amused. “Anyway, yes, you did. I suppose I should also apologize for how that plan went awry,” he sighs.

“The _plan_?”

“I had tried to negotiate the city’s surrender. It… didn’t go exactly the way it was supposed to. Anyhow, that’s beside the point. First of all, just — let me thank you for that.”

“What, getting him out of there?” Harrold asks. “Considering that the emeralds he gave me to buy his way out paid back enough to feed us for _months_ it should be me thanking him for not having tried to get anyone else to help him out of the city.”

Tyrion is about to go on —

Then Jaime just about screams Brienne’s name from the other side of the camp.

Everyone but Alyse and Harrold goes half-red in the face.

“… Right,” Tyrion clears his throat, “I suppose that they found an understanding. _So_ , what I was going to tell you, if I may… would you all like to hear a proposal?”

“Of course,” Harrold says. “Who _doesn’t_ want to hear a proposal from the bloody Hand of the King? Gods, I’m too old for this.”

“Well, as far as I understood… he _really_ doesn’t remember much, does he?”

“Only the ser lady,” the musician — right, _Jon_ — confirms. “And sometimes — now that I recall, he almost blanched the one time I mentioned _The Rains of Castamere_. There are moments where he just… seems like he’s recalling something but more a feeling than the actual thing, if I make myself clear?”

“Hells,” Will says, “when I told him he could name the kid when he pretty much was taking care of him singlehandedly, pardon the probably very bad pun, he looked about to cry or like he didn’t expect it when… well. It was pretty damn obvious that if _anyone_ should that’d have been him. But then I asked later and he said he didn’t know what got over him.”

Tyrion sighs. “Well, I have a feeling that before he, well, _didn’t die_ , he’d have paid solid gold to actually forget half of his life. Anyway, does learning what you just did change anything when it comes to my illustrious brother?”

“What? No!” Hildy says at once. “My parents remembered Aerys. Truth to be told, none of ‘em was too sad that someone took him out. And there’s nothing he’s done since he was with us that was holding up to… well, _that_ name.”

“I’m with her,” Alyse says. “I mean, hells, he’s waxed poetical about that ser lady of his since he opened his eyes, he’s honestly the _least_ sharp-edged person I ever met, and he just — if he stabbed that arse in the back at seventeen because he wanted to blow up the entire fucking city who can blame him?”

“Please,” one of the two other actors, Tyrion can’t remember _their_ names, but they both don’t seem that… _not_ impressed either, “he’s about saved half of our arses in here without even meaning it _especially_ since he about supplied for two dead people other than the rest, so what matters what he was up to before?” The other one nods. “What Martyn said.” Right, _Martyn_. “My mind isn’t changing. I mean, I didn’t know him before, but from the way you talk about him, it’s not like he grew an entirely different personality, or did he?”

Tyrion lets out a snort that has nothing happy in it. “Please,” he says, “from what I saw on that stage he’s… the way he was when we were kids except without the worst parts that were not his fault. From what you’ve told me, I have a feeling that… that’s how he’d have turned out without all his horrid life choices _and_ both my father and my sister ruining the rest of it. He’s always been like that, it’s just that not many others let him be it, I suppose.”

“Gods,” Jon groans, “see me ever envying lords again in my entire life. Anyway, I’ve spent enough time with him to know that if anyone came to me arguing that he’s a terrible person I’d laugh in their faces. Of course not.”

“I’m with him,” Will adds. “My lord, _honestly_ , he cried for how long, I don’t know but it was a _lot_ , when I broke him the news about naming _him_.” He nods towards the kid in Hildy’s arms. “No one who does _that_ is a bad person deep down.”

“Well,” Harrold says, “I think we’re all of the same mind. The question is whether _he_ changes his mind, if he recalls all of that.”

“Knowing him, he wouldn’t,” Tyrion grins, and he’s honestly touched that _none_ of them hesitated for a moment before giving him that same answer. He always felt more than a bit sad that apparently it was just him and Brienne and maybe a few others seeing that his brother was a good person, and that _Jaime_ never really thought he could be, so it’s… heartwarming that they were so fast to proclaim that in fact he _was_. “I mean, I honestly doubt he wants to. He looks happy now, he _wasn’t_ before, and believe me, as good as he was at the whole being a knight business, I think he never could let himself… enjoy it the way he seemed to enjoy _this_ ballads business. So… back to my proposal.”

“I’m all ears.”

“Are you particularly attached to, you know, the whole itinerant company part of your job?”

Harrold snorts. “Not really. I mean, that’s the best way to earn, but do you think that all of us enjoy living in wagons and moving all across the realm? Never mind that you never know how much you will earn from season to season.”

“Very well. What I was thinking —”

Brienne screams Jaime’s name from the nearby tent.

Everyone seems to be blushing _fairly_ badly.

“— _What I was thinking_ , is that we’re trying to rebuild King’s Landing to our best, and Bran Stark’s official coronation will be when it’s done — of course, it will be a rather small affair and nothing too _much_ , no one wants to go back to what things were _before_. Now, never let it be said that as Hand of the King, I wouldn’t finance the arts.”

“… Wait,” Harrold interrupts, “you aren’t implying what I think you’re implying.”

“I am _preventively_ saying,” Tyrion corrects him, “that in case my brother wants to keep on being in this business with you, which I suppose he would — especially given that when it came to _his_ damned children he regretted not being in their life every other moment when my sister wasn’t convincing him it was the right thing to do —, and in case both he and the lady wish to take things back up where they left them before he seemingly died, which seems _exceedingly_ obvious to me, I don’t see why the court shouldn’t have an official acting company in the keep. Or, I don’t see why King’s Landing shouldn’t have a permanent stage that we would let you manage, somewhere conveniently near the castle. I mean, as stated, we’re rebuilding. Nothing is set in stone. So he wouldn’t have to choose and you would only have to gain.”

Harrold’s blue eyes have grown progressively wider, but to his credit the rest of his face hasn’t changed expression for one inch. “I suppose we should discuss —” He starts, even if one can hear that his first instinct was to accept.

“Are you _mad_?” Alyse interrupts him. “He just told you that he’d give us the permanent good lodgings, we could actually focus on the job without worrying about the wagons or people stealin’ from us or whether whatever Will comes up with is _good_ but not the kind that people want to pay for, and I suppose we’d get steady money for it?”

“Goes unsaid,” Tyrion grins.

“Right, I’m with her,” Hildy agrees. “Harrold, honestly, there isn’t much to discuss here.”

“Gods, a _theater_ ,” Will sighs, “where do I sign, my lord? Because now _that_ would be an improvement.”

“He’s right,” Jon says. “And actually — I suppose that there will be taverns there when you _rebuild_ , right?”

“Hopefully. I mean, we don’t really have to plan for them, a few have been surfacing already.”

“That means it’s _more_ money if they need musicians.”

“No wagons anymore? Where do I sign for _that_?” Martyn asks.

“And _regular food_? Harrold, _please_ ,” the last actor, right, _Olyvar_ , points out. “I’m entirely fine with it.”

Harrold shrugs, but he’s sort of grinning. “Then if that’s in everyone’s common interest and your brother agrees to it… I _am_ getting too old to travel around. I say we’re in agreement.”

“Splendid,” Tyrion says, “then I suppose we can just… er… wait for them to get _that_ out of their system. If you want to hand me some blackmail material for later, I am amenable.”

“I think we _do_ have that,” Hildy grins.

Tyrion decides he _does_ like these people.

— —

It takes those two a _while_ to get it out of their system — at some point Arya, who had left the wagon for fresh air, opens the flap and tells them that it looks like they’re done, and Brienne said they’d be out shortly, and all the actors glance at each other before agreeing that maybe it’s the case to leave them all alone for the next conversation they’re about to have. They leave Tyrion and Arya in the wagon, and at _that_ point the whole weight of the situation suddenly crashes on him and he realizes his hands are shaking.

“What,” Arya says, “now _you_ are getting antsy?”

He laughs, shaking his head. “Well, we _all_ knew he remembered _her_. No one said _I_ was the same story.”

“You said it before,” she shrugs, “might be that it’s just that he doesn’t recall his family at all but if he didn’t hate you he most likely will remember at least _you_. From what I gathered anyway.”

“You speak like you know something about _that_ ,” Tyrion tells her.

She shrugs. “I might’ve been there myself. Almost forgetting myself,” she admits. “Then I realized I just really wanted to go home and then I screwed it back up again.”

“If it consoles you, Lord Baratheon is unwed yet.”

At _that_ , she suddenly seems entirely more interested. “Is… is he?”

“Yes. And he has apparently turned down any _lady_ who was interested in his hand, for now.”

She snorts. “I don’t know if I could ask him —”

Tyrion glares at her. “ _She_ took my brother back very enthusiastically,” he says, “and he might’ve been _worse_ to her than you were to him, from what I gathered. Fine, Brienne might be a bit too forgiving, but _he_ isn’t really that different. Just own up to your mistakes. I’m finding out it does help you out in the long run.”

“I might hear you out,” she says, and then moves from her place on the chair she was occupying. “Right, I think I shouldn’t be here ogling at you. Good luck.” She jumps down from the wagon and Tyrion can see Brienne’s cloak on the outside before the tarp falls down.

Seven hells. They’re coming here, and —

Right. _Right_. He breathes in once, twice, thinking about Jaime’s devastated, half-dead eyes when he let him free, about how they held to each other both times, then and when _Jaime_ let him go, about how happy he seemed to be in Winterfell and about how his eyes were _not_ dead then, about how he couldn’t believe that for that short time they finally could be brothers again and then he had to fish that golden hand out of that rubble covered in blood and dust as he thought that he truly had no one he was _related_ to anymore —

He doesn’t know what he’s going to do if Jaime doesn’t remember him at all, even if he wouldn’t blame him if he somehow chose to forget the whole lot of them. That surname never did good to any of them, did it?

A moment later, the flap parts, but it’s just Brienne coming in — she has no armor underneath the cloak, and her hair is completely unkempt, her cheeks flushed, and she definitely smells like they’ve just fucked for an hour or so, but that’s not the problem right now.

“… So?” Tyrion asks, fearing the answer.

“I came in first just to… well, he remembered my name without me needing to prompt it, even if I had to tell him his,” she says, “but he hadn’t before. He might have recalled a, uh, few other things, but nothing of import. He definitely does _not_ remember his sister. He also said that… for now if it doesn’t come to him, he’d rather not know before, unless he asks. That said, I think it’s not a danger he wouldn’t remember _you_ , but — if we have to tell him the entire thing, better wait until he says he wants us to.”

He nods. “That makes sense. But — why would that _not be a danger_?”

She smiles. “You should have seen his face when I told him I brought with someone else who _knew him_. I — will send him up. Just give him a moment. But I _am_ sure he will.”

Tyrion nods, holding his breath — she turns and opens the flap, tells Jaime to get in already and he does, looking at his feet as he hoists himself up. Brienne discreetly slips out of it, even if he can see her standing up on the outside, but then he can’t worry about that anymore because Jaime’s raising his eyes and meeting his _and_ —

For a moment Jaime stops dead in his tracks, squinting slightly, and _damn_ but the difference in between _now_ and the last time they saw each other is so stark he almost wants to faint — he doesn’t look like he hates himself and the world now, his eyes are certainly not _dead_ , and it seems like the slight lines on his face faded even if maybe it’s a trick of the light, and gods but the things he’d have given to see him like _this_ all the time instead of — well. He’s seen enough of his brother laughing with his mouth but not with his eyes for his entire life to know the difference. He’s not laughing now, but he’s just _staring_ at him intently, and at least it’s definitely not… well, the look of someone who has no idea of who he is.

He stares back, not having a clue of _what_ he might be looking like here, but on the other side he doesn’t know if he wants to _talk_ , if it would jeopardize things, if it wouldn’t, and gods he can’t believe he’s alive and that he didn’t die under that damned rubble and regardless of whether he remembers or not he’s not the only one left and if he could keep any of his family at least he’d got to keep _him_ —

Jaime blinks for a moment, closes his eyes, opens them again, he keeps on _staring_ and then he goes down on one knee after taking a few steps, and —

He closes his eyes again, looking like someone whose head is pounding, and then he looks at him once more, now that they’re of a height again, and it’s the same as when Jaime freed him, isn’t it, but he still isn’t talking and Tyrion is half-sure that he’ll fall dead of tension if nothing happens.

“Jaime? Hells, please say _anything_ because you might’ve liked a good joke back in the day but you’re killing me here,” he blurts, managing to not say _and it would be a very poor joke if you did when I wouldn’t have survived up until now without you either way_ , and then Jaime’s left hand slowly, slowly reaches up and frames his face, and it’s trembling ever so slightly, and —

“Hells,” he says, “it’s — it’s all completely messed up and I’m not — but — _Tyrion_?”

He doesn’t know how he doesn’t start crying in relief the moment Jaime says it, just nods once, taking a small step forward, and then —

“I did this once already, didn’t I,” Jaime whispers. “No, more than once.”

“Maybe you did,” Tyrion says, trying to get his breathing under control already, but he’s not so sure he can, and then Jaime’s eyes go wider still but he frowns as if something doesn’t add up.

“What’s wrong…?”

“It doesn’t make sense,” Jaime says, “I mean, I — I gave you a pony once, didn’t I?”

Tyrion is pretty damn sure he _will_ cry. “You did,” he says.

“But _how_ could I — I mean, it’s not the one thing I’m recalling, there’s some others, but it makes no sense.”

“… How exactly?”

Jaime scoffs slightly, but his hand doesn’t move. “Because you’re — I mean, she’s in the _Kingsguard_ and you came with her, your shirt is silk, that doublet is _velvet_ , I’m pretty damn fucking sure I couldn’t have the means to — what’s so _funny_ now?” He asks, just as Tyrion breaks down laughing, because right, he forgot, of _course_ they figured out that he must have been a commoner because of the poor quality clothing he had on when he ran except for that jacket he lost along the way and because of his still not _excellent_ reading, so now that doesn’t add up, which means that he’s remembered _him_ but not their father or Cersei, and —

“Jaime, for — you’re my _brother_ , maybe it is a bit funny if you will excuse me. Which means that _yes_ , you’re not as much of a commoner as you might have assumed, but —”

Then he realizes that Jaime’s eyes have fallen on the pin he has on his breast.

They go so wide it _is_ almost funny.

“Just you wait a fucking moment,” he says, and he sounds so much like his old self now, except _without_ the self-loathing, Tyrion is going to faint, “I spend months wondering where do I even come from, then the woman I _know_ I love shows up and I find out she’s in the _Kingsguard_ , then I find out I _do_ have a brother and… he’s the damn _Hand of the King_? What in the Seven Hells?”

He can’t help it — he laughs at that, unable to keep it in anymore, and at this point who even bloody cares. He throws his arms around Jaime’s neck, breathing in relief when Jaime grasps back at him, and —

“Oh,” he whispers, “I remember doing this.”

“That’s because you _did_ ,” Tyrion blurts against his neck, and so what if they’ll have to wait a bit for explanations?

They can.

Later.

— —

 _Later_ , they’re all in Jaime’s wagon. As in, him, Jaime, Arya and the kid Hildy was holding before — the moment he woke up when they got out of her wagon he was about screaming for Jaime, and then calmed down the moment Jaime picked him up and told him _something_ and Tyrion is pretty sure that when he and Brienne looked at each other as it happened they had shared the same exact stare.

While Jaime was busy making sure the child was fine, Tyrion had motioned for Brienne to lean down.

“How much do we tell him?” He asked, because he knew they _had_ to.

Brienne had sighed, then nodded. “As much as he asks of us. I think it should be up to him.”

He had agreed, and now they’re all huddled inside it — Jaime is on the hastily remade bed (everyone is pretending to ignore it smells like he and Brienne fucked in it for one hour) with the kid curled up against his chest, Brienne is sitting next to him, her armor on the ground, Tyrion is on the only chair in the place and Arya is staring at them from near the flap.

“Should I know who _she_ is?” Jaime asks, nodding towards her.

“Nah,” Arya says, “I mean, we’ve been around each other but I’d be surprised if you’d recall. I was just coming with them. But I know everything.”

“… Fair,” he says, then looks back again at the two of them. He sits up a bit straighter. “So,” he says, “I know I might regret asking this, but — _how_ is it that the woman I love is the _Lord Commander_ of the Kingsguard and my brother is the _Hand of the King_ and I remember nothing that would even justify me _knowing_ the two of you?”

“I imagine you didn’t remember my surname, did you?”

“… No? Just the name,” Jaime says.

Brienne puts a hand on the small of his back.

Tyrion tells him.

The moment he puts two and two together, he holds on to the kid tighter while simultaneously leaning into Brienne and then shakes his head after a long, long moment.

“You’re telling me _I_ killed Aerys Targaryen?”

Of course he’d know that. Tyrion doubts any singer worth his salt would _not_ know about that.

“Do you remember?”

“Not at all,” he says, shaking his head.

“Right,” Tyrion says. “Let’s just — don’t put too much effort into it. But — what is it about _me_ that you remember precisely?”

He closes his eyes. “Well, now that you said it — I know we’re brothers. Just — I _know_ that. It feels right. It feels real. I remember giving you that pony and possibly some other toys, I think, we must have been very young. I — you got lost somewhere dark and I found you at some point?”

“Yes,” Tyrion says, not specifying _where_ it was. “Then?”

“Uhm, you designed your own saddle for that pony. I think. I tried to read to you a few times but you were better than me at it anyway so it always ended up with _you_ reading to me. I think.”

“That — that also happened. Anything else?”

“I — I let you out of someplace once. I’m fairly sure I thought we’d never see each other again.” He lists a fair amount of other memories, but — there’s a pattern. There _is_. It’s either things they did _together_ when they were children in Casterly Rock or out of context moments never including Cersei or their father, _nor_ anything concerning his right hand — there’s no mention that he tried to buy Tyrion’s life with his own hand once during that trial because he couldn’t defend him without his right one, nothing else from after he freed Tyrion either. He glances at Brienne. He can see that she’s noticed it, too.

Thing is, Jaime _never_ was an idiot, as much as Cersei liked to call him otherwise, and as much as Tyrion thought him one when he tried to kill a damn dragon on his own. He can see that they know something he doesn’t.

“There’s something you haven’t been telling me, is it?” He asks, half-smiling, but as if he’s prepared for the worst.

“Well,” Tyrion says, “anything else you’ve learned about… _yourself_ while reading ballads, never mind Aerys Targaryen?”

He shrugs. “That I _did_ know Arthur Dayne, even if I don’t recall him at all, that I had a twin sister I don’t remember either and that most of the realm thought very ill of me?”

“Because they never bothered to learn the truth,” Brienne says. “You killed Aerys _to save the entire city_ , he was going to blow it up,” she smiles at him, so sweetly that Tyrion is almost floored by it, and he can see why Jaime would have hated himself for leaving her behind. That said… for how worried she was before, _well_ , she doesn’t seem to be now. “And you gave me that sword, by the way.”

“… _Did I_?”

“Yes. What,” she smiles, “you put that in the darned song and you didn’t remember _that_?”

“No,” he says, but now he’s smiling back at her. “I just thought it sounded romantic. And — in other songs it’s ladies giving knights gifts before they leave in search of fortune, right? I wanted to do the reverse.”

“Well,” she says, “you _actually_ did that. Anyway, what he’s not telling you, is that… everything you’re not remembering, are things that eventually hurt you in the long run.”

“… I guess that would explain Aerys Targaryen, but — wait.” He breathes in, his hand rubbing the back of the kid’s head distractedly, as if he’s doing it to calm _himself_ down. The kid is certainly enjoying it, but that’s it. He didn’t _need_ that. “I have heard enough about… the last queen on the Iron Throne. _She_ was my sister, wasn’t she?”

“… Yes,” Tyrion tells him.

Jaime’s expression is deadly serious when he looks at him again. “… She was the dead woman under the ceiling, wasn’t she?”

“Yes,” Brienne says, and Tyrion admires how steady her voice is. He doesn’t know if he could have.

He seems to think about it some more. Then he shakes his head. “I can’t even remember her face,” he says. “And — I don’t feel exceedingly bad about it. Should I?”

“If I were you? No,” Tyrion says. “Honestly, I wish I could forget her any other day. And I have a feeling she was eventually way worse for you than for me, which is saying all since, as far as I was told once upon a time, when you two were eight you stopped her from making sure I couldn’t ever father children.”

He glances down at the kid in his arms, then back at Tyrion. His cheeks got paler, and he looks slightly pained as he shakes his head again. “Still nothing, but — gods, _why_?”

He snorts. “She wasn’t… she’s always hated me. Anyway, that’s not the point.”

“But why would I be _there_ then if I don’t even remember her now? I mean, if we established that I’m somehow not recalling anything that I hated from my life before, then why was I _there_?”

“You fought during the Long Night,” Brienne says at once, and Tyrion is grateful that she’s doing this even if _she_ shouldn’t, “and — we had known each other from a long time before, and that was when we — got over ourselves. Then there came news that Daenerys’s army had been defeated, you learned that she paid a… former friend of yours to kill the both of you, and since you and her were close you figured out that you might be the only person that could get close to her enough to get her to surrender. I — we argued about it and you didn’t let me come with you. I don’t know what happened after except that he told me that Daenerys arrested you on the road and he freed you so you could convince her to surrender and ring the bells, but I suppose that went awry. No one knows what happened after because no one was with you, but — that was it, as far as we all know.”

Tyrion has _no idea_ of how she could spin it like _that_ with a straight face. Sure as the seven hells she’s a better liar than any of them ever gave her credit for, even if technically… _almost_ none of that was a lie. It _did_ go like that. More or less. But — she was the one talking to him before, and evidently she decided to spare him the whole truth, and she’s still looking at him like she can’t believe he’s alive and _there_ , and maybe he’ll ask her later, but it was her decision and maybe he feels relieved she took it upon herself.

“Now,” she says, “if you don’t remember it there’s no point in forcing it. You made yourself a _nice_ life and you did good with it and I imagine _this_ is what you want, right?”

He nods once, and he’s back to looking at her like he can’t believe she’s even real.

“Well.” She breathes. “As far as the _realm_ and everyone is concerned, Jaime _Lannister_ died honorably during the fall of King’s Landing. I suppose you do not care for reclaiming that name now, do you?”

“No,” he says at once, “not really.”

“Then,” she smiles, “I think Tyrion should tell you what he proposed your friends out there.”

“… What did you propose them?” He asks.

“I might have informed Waters that we’re rebuilding King’s Landing, hopefully for the better. Which means we might want a permanent theater there. Or a court theater company. Or, even better, a permanent theater whose company would be the first we called if we needed them at the palace. The theater _could_ be near the Red Keep, and I am fairly sure that the lady’s vows here can be also worked around. I don’t really think anyone would recognize you. They _all_ agreed at once that if that was what you wanted they would follow without blinking.”

At _that_ , Jaime’s eyes go so wide that he _has_ to laugh a bit at that.

“You aren’t saying that —”

“He’s saying,” Brienne says, moving a hand to his face, looking at him still so sweetly, “that if that’s what you want you can come with us to King’s Landing with all of them, you can keep on writing your admittedly very good songs even if I’d beg you to _not_ tell everyone how much you like it when I tie you to the bed, maybe we can find at least _you_ a room near the guard’s quarters —”

“Or we could build the theater with the lodgings _inside_ the castle and catch the chance to have the commoners feel closer to their government when they come to see a play,” Tyrion ponders out loud.

“That could be ideal,” Brienne agrees. “Of course you bring _him_ , too,” she says, nodding at the kid. “I could never say no, when you named him after my _great-grandfather_.”

“… Wait, was he?” Jaime blurts, looking like he _will_ break down laughing in a moment.

“I found out recently,” she says. “Why?”

“… Because… er, the whole naming business was when we just got here, I was reminded that your _great-grandfather_ died at Summerhall, then I thought about it and realized that he actually was even better than Ser Arthur when it came to, well, knighthood, then I realized that from the songs you and him looked alike, so —”

“Good gods,” Arya says, after having kept her silence until now, “you _really_ seem out of those terrible songs Sansa used to love. And I thought _Gendry_ belonged in one.”

“… Should I know who _that_ is?”

“No,” Brienne smiles. “Anyway, if you’re telling me _that_ was the reasoning, then I’m sure _he_ wants nephews and I would like to get to know him very much, so if that’s what you want —”

“Yes,” Jaime says at once, and now _he_ is crying, for — “Hells, yes, of course, that’s — I wouldn’t have presumed to ask, but that you’d do such a thing for —”

“We _would_ ,” she says, and Arya says something about telling the others that they should start packing their bags for King’s Landing as Brienne wraps an arm around Jaime’s shoulders, and then they both look at him nodding towards Jaime’s left side, and so he gets out of the chair and climbs on the bed, his hand holding Jaime’s wrist, and then they end up half-rearranged so that Jaime has an arm around him and _his_ child is held in between him and Brienne, and regardless of whatever happens now —

Damn.

Maybe he’s not just happy that _Jaime_ is, he might be because _all_ of them finally seem to be, now.

And he can’t wait to get back to King’s Landing.

They do have a theater to build, after all.

— —

“Can I ask you something?” He questions Brienne a few days later, as they load up the wagons after the end of the celebration. Harrold seems very satisfied of how much money they made during it, and Brienne actually went to _all_ of Jaime’s performances and did _not_ grimace at all when he sang _that_ one song about how good she is in bed. All of the times, _she_ was keeping Duncan — Hildy appreciated being relieved, _he_ seems to like Brienne at least half as much as he likes his brother, and Tyrion decided that maybe after all the misery they went through it was just owed to them that _something_ would go in the right direction.

“Of course,” Brienne asks, her armor safely hidden under her cloak, even if there’s a very visible sign of what she and Jaime were up to last night on her neck.

Then again, there are _multiple_ ones on his own.

“When you told him why he was with Cersei when he _didn’t_ die,” he says. “How — I mean, I get why you did it. But — it must have taken a lot.”

“I thought it might when I considered lying to him before we actually talked,” she says. “But — listen, when he saw the armor. It was… pretty early on.”

“What did he do?”

“Well, his first instinct was telling me that he wasn’t surprised _I_ would be wearing it and then he asked me to let him follow us to King’s Landing with Duncan if I would, and that as long as he could see me often enough and I wouldn’t stop him from writing those songs he wouldn’t ask anything else of me.”

“… Wait. Did he actually —”

“Immediately tell me he was willing to do _exactly_ what he had with his sister, for _years_ , except without even being with me once in a while, and without even thinking about it for one second? Yes, he did. I think that sealed it. I mean, what was I going to do? Doubt that he cared? Accept out of some twisted vengeance and be _worse_ than her because I’d be taking advantage of the fact that he didn’t remember any of the circumstances when the only thing I couldn’t make peace with was that I thought I hadn’t mattered that much to him? When that made clear that I _did_ matter to him more than anyone else and when the only thing I ever wanted —”

“… Was _him_?”

“… Yes,” she smiles, her eyes sparkling with joy, _literally_. “It would have just been cruel to — tell him otherwise. And for that matter… I mean, if the moment he wakes up he remembers _me_ and maybe the Long Night and then the most he recalled was _you_ , then if _those_ were the important things and if those were the real reasons driving him… then I guess it wasn’t even a lie.”

“Fair enough,” Tyrion smiles. “He _did_ rub off on you, though.”

“I never said he never did,” she smiles back.

“Hells, you _are_ that bad,” Arya says from atop her horse, showing up next to them. “Right, so, your brother says they’re almost good to go so you’re welcome to ride in _his_ wagon. For some miracle, it didn’t seem to have a double meaning. Anyhow, I’m off to Storm’s End.”

“Good luck,” Brienne tells her.

Arya stares at her. “… Can I ask you if it was hard to — take him back? With everything he did to you?”

Tyrion is fairly sure Brienne knows why _she_ is being asked that, since… _she_ was in Gendry’s position, wasn’t she?

“Maybe a bit in the beginning,” she admits, “or better, I was sure it would be. Then — he was just, _very much himself_ and I couldn’t — _not_ take him back. Just be sincere about it. And since you _can_ apologize to him, do it. I think he might appreciated.”

Arya takes that in, gives her a little nod. “All — all right. I guess I’ll see you in King’s Landing, maybe.”

“Do come whenever you wish.”

Arya nods at the both of them again, then rides off. Neither of them wishes her a safe trip — anyone who’d try to kill her would end up dead before they even tried, anyway.

“So,” Tyrion says, “shall we join my brother _in his wagon_ and start pondering how are we going to ask the king to do away with _that_ one vow from the Kingsguard?”

“Gladly,” she grins back at him, and they turn towards the wagon in question.

He thinks he will enjoy the trip back much more than the one forward, and so will she.

 

 

_One Year Later_

 

 

The sky is barely turning violet outside Brienne’s window, not that Jaime has _really_ taken notice of it.

He slipped inside it yesterday after supper, and never mind if by now every single time he’s seen going to her door he gets knowing stares from just about everyone — so what? They know, _everyone_ knows, the damned king, according to his brother at least, _smirked_ and said that it was a done deal the moment they asked about doing away with _that_ one vow, and it hadn’t been long before she had opened the door and joined him.

 

(She told him that the White Tower got burned during the fire and they decided to not rebuild it, so even if he ever was in similar lodgings he doesn’t recall. He _did_ read his own entry in the White Book, or what was supposed to be it. It hadn’t sparked anything.

 _I suppose Jaime_ Lannister _might be more dead than else_ , he had said, closing it, _but something tells me he’d have been grateful for how you finished it._

 _Well_ , she had smiled back, _I never much cared for what your House brought with. Back when you made it clear once, you said your name was_ Jaime _, not — Kingslayer. That was the man I loved_.

 _I think,_ he had said, closing the book and standing up on his toes so he could kiss her proper, _that person might not be dead at all_ , and then he _had_ kissed her proper.

He hadn’t looked at that book since.)

 

“How was your day?” He had asked as she got rid of the armor. She had rolled her eyes.

“Anyone who thinks running a kingdom is exciting should think on it again. I might be itching for some bandit to start roaming the woods nearby so I can do _something_ , truth to be told.”

“Please tell me if you do, I need to witness it so I can do my job properly.”

She had laughed, and gods, doesn’t he _love_ to see her laugh, the way she barely did in his dreams — in reality it makes her almost glow, and if _he_ put that look on her face, even better.

“Sure,” she said, “unless people get bored. I mean, how many are you even at?”

“Twenty and counting,” he had grinned, kicking off his boots, “and they are _still_ extremely popular. All of them. People do want to hear songs about you, Ser Brienne. Yesterday there were even a few little girls who asked me how do _they_ become knights, you know.”

“Tell them to come find me in a few years if they still want to. Or they can ask you straight,” she had replied. He laughed — she did tell him he knighted her, actually, and while he doesn’t recall _that_ it felt right and he said that if it was the last thing he had to do before giving that job up forever, he was glad of it. “Anyway, it was boring. To the point that Bronn’s jokes were almost entertaining.”

“You’re too harsh on his jokes,” Jaime had said, lying down on her bed.

She had openly sighed as she looked at the ceiling. “Beg your pardon if I’d rather hear _that_ kind of joke from you, if I had to pick one person.”

He _had_ smiled openly at that, raising an eyebrow in her direction. “So what, you’ve got preferences, Ser?”

“I thought I made it obvious,” she had said, and then she had moved on top of him and kissed him before he could nag at her some more, and gods if he hadn’t forgotten whatever else he was about to say a moment later.

They had fallen asleep long, _long_ later, and now they both woke up before sundown because he had one of those rare nightmares that he _never_ remembers the moment he opens his eyes, but from the way she looks at him with large, worried eyes every time it happens, he has a feeling that she knows what they’re about.

 

(Sometimes he wonders, _does that mean that I still remember everything from_ before _deep down_ , and _do I want it to come out one day or not_ , but then it never happens and honestly, he’s made peace with it. Maybe he never will. He has made so many new, _good_ memories since the day he walked out of that rubble, he thinks he’s all right the way he is.)

 

“You all right?” She had said, draping an arm around his waist, letting him mold against her.

“I think I will be now,” he had said, shakily, “but if you want to make me forget sooner —”

She had stared at him intently, and then she had kissed him slow, thorough, her hand going through his hair as she held him closer, and now he’s barely even taking notice of anything else because she’s on top of him again, her thighs framing his waist, riding him so very, very slowly, her hands cradling his face first and his shoulders later as he moans against the skin of her shoulder — she moves a hand to the back of his head and arches back so his mouth can trail along her chest if he likes, and he _does_ , gods he does, not feeling like he has to worry about anything else when he has her arm around his back and it feels like she _has_ him in every conceivable way of the word, and that’s exactly how he wants it to be.

There’s nothing hurried about it, and they both already smelled like two people who bedded each other for a long, long time yesterday, but now that he’s had time to remember and relearn her all over again

 

(she’s maybe a bit broader than she was in his dreams and she _did_ put on more muscle since then but it was nothing that different)

 

he takes joy in it _every damned time_ , and she has no idea that if he could he’d write a damned song for every single time they fuck, if only it wouldn’t mean being in the hundreds now and maybe _that_ might be a bit of an overkill.

Not to _him_ , thought, never to him, and he moans her name each time she sinks down on him, and the way she whispers his own into his hair makes his blood turn hotter — he’s completely forgotten that lingering feeling of _wrongness_ and displeasure and slight nausea he had when he woke up, and when he looks up to find her stare she’s looking down at him with those astonishing blue eyes in that same way that always makes his heart stop —

“Jaime?” She whispers, leaning down, her hips slamming downwards again, and he doesn’t think he’ll last long, not when she’s warm and wet and fits against him like she’s his missing piece or maybe the contrary, not when her skin is warm and he can feel her muscles under his left hand.

“Brienne?” He breathes back, his mouth inches from hers.

“I think I know what it was about,” she blurts, “you were talking.”

“Don’t —”

“I won’’t,” she assures him, “not if you don’t ask. It’s nothing you haven’t been told anyway.”

He nods, not that he hadn’t imagined it.

“Just,” she breathes against his ear again, “I loved you before and I love you _now_ and I’m thankful every other moment that we found each other again and I wouldn’t change this for the world, and I need you to know it because — I’m — not sure you _really_ did before.”

He feels his eyes burn but in the _good_ way as she kisses him again before he can tell her anything else, and at this point he’s too wound-up and her touch is almost too much and she’s clenching around him as she sinks on him again and again and _again_ —

Jaime feels it when she peaks around him, at the same time _he_ spills inside her, and he tells her he loves her inside her mouth as the bed slightly creaks, and then she’s laughing as they lean back down, her fingers messing up his hair while his own get tangled in hers — it’s even longer now, down to her shoulders, and he thinks he loves the look of it almost as much as he loves _her_ , period.

“I guess,” he huffs, “that if I didn’t _really_ know it before then it’s time I make up for my past mistakes.”

“You’re doing that already,” she smiles against his lips, kissing him again.

“Hm,” he says, glancing outside the window. It’s dawn now. Too bad. “I suppose it’s getting late.”

“No one says we can’t share a bath before we have to go off doing our duties.”

“About _that_ ,” he grins, “I think I have a new song ready.”

“Do you,” she grins back. “I suppose I shouldn’t ask who is it about?”

“Absolutely not, but it’s not my fault if you were born to have songs written about you. And this one isn’t _just_ about you, if you’re pleased to hear that.”

“Honestly? Yes, at least it means you can do variety.”

“Hilarious, Brienne. Anyway, I suppose you _will_ come to hear it later tonight?”

“Where, at that tavern where I found out about the other one?”

“That one exactly. The owner likes us, what can I say?”

“Of course I will,” she says, her hand still caressing his face. “Now I am not so ungrateful that I would ignore _that_ , would I?”

“Good,” he smiles back. “So, that bath? By the way, for the next one, I _really_ think I should mention how good you are when it comes to using your tongue when —”

“ _Jaime_? You will _not_.” But she’s trying not to laugh as she says it, so he figures that she might not mind that much after all, if he goes there.

And he _does_ want to go there.

He thinks he really, _really_ should.

— —

They do share that bath, even if it’s too short for his liking, and then after she’s put on her armor again and he’s dressing, she turns towards him with a fairly knowing face.

“By the way,” she says, “I forgot to mention that yesterday’s council was maybe slightly less boring than usual.”

“Is that a way to tell me that if I need free child care help I can drop my kid with the most important people in Westeros instead of poor Hildy having to do it because she’s the only one who somehow doesn’t always have something else on her hands?” He laughs, putting back on his boots.

“Well, unless you mind that if he stays around Bronn for longer than a few hours he might start swearing worse than _you_ do, but Lord Davos was exceedingly happy to shut him up when it seems like it might get out of control, Sam has _two_ of his own so he’s better at it than most of us and you know how he is with your brother, and it’s not like either Lord Royce is here often since he’s scouring Westeros making sure no other wars are starting _now_ , but I don’t think he would mind. So, yes, you actually could.”

“Good,” he smiles back, “that’s great to know. Though I suppose I should come collect him now, shouldn’t I?”

“Maybe you _should_ ,” she says. “But that was just so you’d know.”

Honestly, it _is_ a bit of a relief — yesterday there was no other choice because he had to help the others set up the scenes for Will’s new play and they needed all the hands they could use, including his one, and no one wants almost-three-year-olds running around that kind of stage when it’s full of pieces of it that might fall on them. But it’s good to know that they actually were glad of it. He puts his jacket back on, following Brienne outside her quarters until they get to Tyrion’s, from which there’s indeed some noise coming as the door opens. The moment he and Brienne turn the corner, his brother and Podrick Payne are coming out of the door, and he immediately takes his kid from Pod before he jumps out of his arms and crashes on the ground.

“Hey,” he says, ruffling Duncan’s hair, “did you like having a break from me?”

He makes a face. “No,” he protests, “but can I stay with them again?”

“Honestly,” Tyrion grins, looking entirely too pleased with himself, “maybe _I_ did rub off on him, he did like my books.”

“Not that I’m complaining,” Jaime says, trying to _not_ swoon too much when she sees Brienne making a face at the kid, who laughs the moment she does. “Right, then I suppose I’ll see you all tonight.”

“At that tavern, sure you will,” Tyrion says. “Feel free to send him for help whenever!”

“We’ll see,” Jaime says as the three of them go in the opposite way. He _should_ go back to the theater in a while, but no one is expecting him until mid-morning, _he_ doesn’t have to act this time (though he has a few others, apparently now that Will can write whatever in the seven hells he likes he _can_ write him parts for which he doesn’t need both hands to act), no reasons why they can’t take it slow. “So, you had fun with your uncle and Brienne and the others?”

He _is_ ready for the onslaught of _yes_ and _Uncle Tyrion’s books are amazing_ and Pod is always fun and Brienne is always kind and apparently Davos Seaworth was delighted to have him around and Sam said that next time he’d bring _his_ two children along, too, so he can make some new friends, and as Jaime goes back to his room so they can rest a moment, maybe change their clothes and make plans for the day, he knows deep in his heart that even if he most likely _won’t_ remember much more than what he does right now, _well_ , this is a life he _would_ have wanted.

All of it.

And so what if tonight’s song was something he had worked on for _months_ on the side so he could make peace with what he _knows_ but won’t recall? He thinks it’s been good for him, and he can’t wait for Brienne and Tyrion and the others to hear it because he likes to think it came out a pretty nice effort — Jon is the only one who knows for now, because he has to _play_ it, but he said it was impressive just before telling him that he never saw _anyone_ so far gone on a woman than him.

He hadn’t disagreed.

It’s not like it’s a lie now, isn’t it?

— —

“You could have said you were coming,” Brienne says as she walks into the _Stone Pony_ and finds _both_ Arya and Gendry Waters sitting inconspicuously at the back of the room. Then Duncan, who’s on her shoulders, pulls at her hair a bit.

“Do you know them?”

“Oh, you do, too, you just can’t remember them,” she replies fondly before taking a seat herself and pulling him into her lap. Gendry just glares at Arya, but without much bite.

“I _did_ tell her to warn, but she said _maybe when we get there_ , then we found out _he_ was playing and figured you would stop by. Hey, I’m Gendry, she’s Arya, sorry if she’s useless at introductions,” he says at Duncan, who snorts at that, and Arya just looks at Brienne instead, looking halfway embarrassed.

“I kind of wanted to,” she says, “then — I just figured we would show up.”

“So,” Brienne says as Gendry very seriously shakes the kid’s hand, “did apologizing work out?” She might sound a bit smug, but it’s good to know the advice worked.

“Yes,” Arya admits. “I wasn’t holding much hope on it, but — thank you.”

“What a chance,” Tyrion says, coming in behind them, “I see we’re having a reunion no one planned about?”

Arya rolls her eyes at him as he takes a chair — both Bronn and Davos show up a moment later, sitting down near Tyrion, and then she sees Hildy waving at them from behind the stage and she waves back, because of course they’re all on the other side of the tavern since they’re also playing a few scenes before Jaime _finally_ sings them his infamous new piece.

At least it _is_ full. Good. She _does_ like that he’s become enough of a name — he _did_ keep Arthur for that, he said it would be better to keep on going unrecognized — that people will flock if they know he’s singing. Maybe it’s not the recognition of his skills he would have wanted a long time ago, or that he _thought_ he wouldn’t have wanted, but she’s happy people are seeing it nonetheless and he’s exceedingly glad of it _now_ , so what does it matter?

“Apparently so,” Brienne says, ruffling Duncan’s hair as he laughs at something Gendry said, and if she notices that Arya is sort of smiling at the exchange, she says nothing. She’s also saying nothing about her moon bloody having been late for a few days, but as stated, _that_ one vow is done with and her father would very much like a heir, she thinks, and who is even going to care about her being unwed when the entire realm is brimming with songs being sung everywhere about how she’s both an exceptional knight _and_ also a very good option to share a bed with?

She had thought she would have to learn to deal with it.

It’s been almost a year and she thinks that maybe she’s even learned to _like_ it. If only Jaime would avoid going into details once in a while maybe it would be ideal, but at this point she doesn’t even mind it that much.

“Well,” Arya says, “I suppose he’s still not changing subjects when it comes to his singing, since every single song of his we hear down in the Stormlands is about _you_.”

“What can I do,” Brienne grins, “he likes me that much.” A year ago, she couldn’t have _believed_ that she’d say it.

But now she is, and before Arya can say anything more the owner has rang some bell and told everyone to enjoy their evening and please ask the serving wenches for any food or drink they might need, and so they say nothing more as they all turn immediately silent.

The few scenes the others act out before Jaime comes up on stage are admittedly hilarious _and_ have the crowd roaring, but then Will comes out introducing Jaime’s new song first which is apparently _some of the best you will ever hear_ , but then informs them that he will absolutely sing a selection of his others after, and then he gets out on stage along with Jon and sends her a breathtaking smile as he sits down, and Brienne’s heart is maybe pounding a bit hard same as it _always_ does whenever she hears anything new he has written.

Jaime addresses the crowd, clears his throat, says that this one was maybe a bit of a hard song to write but he hopes they will like it, and then he sits back down on the chair the owner provided as Jon starts playing.

And —

All right, the music _is_ a bit melancholy, though not _sad_. A bit like that first one he wrote.

Then he starts.

“'Twas in another lifetime, one of toil and blood, when blackness was a virtue the road was full of mud, he came in from the wilderness, a creature void of form — come in, she said, I'll give you shelter from the storm,” he sings, in a sweet, warm voice, his eyes meeting hers for a moment at the last line, and _oh_ , Brienne thinks, she can see what he meant with _a bit of a hard song to write_.

“And if he ever meets her again, you can rest assured, he’ll always do his best for her, on that he’ll give his word, in a world of steel-eyed death, and men who are fighting to be warm — come in, she said, I'll give you shelter from the storm,” he goes on, staring to the side but then back at her, and suddenly her breath is caught in her throat because she thinks she’s getting what he’s aiming at, and maybe that was what he thought while he was riding off to King’s Landing? She can’t know, and _he_ can’t know, but she has a feeling it might have been,

“Not a word was spoke between them, there was little risk involved, everything up to that point had been left unresolved, he tried imagining a place where it's always safe and warm — come in, she said, I'll give you shelter from the storm.”

Bronn chokes down a bout of laughter into his shirt, Tyrion whistles at her, and she doesn’t go red in the face because that’s not the first or last time he puts into song what they did during that first time, but — but it’s softer now, gentler, and he hasn’t said anything _specific_ but she knows what he meant, and she has to raise up a hand to wipe at her eyes. Just a bit.

“He was burned out from exhaustion, buried in the hail, poisoned in the fire an' blown out on the trail, hunted like a wild beast, ravaged in the corn, come in, she said, I'll give you shelter from the storm —”

Brienne doesn’t know if she should ask him later if he somehow has a clue that _every damned time_ he’s had nightmares lately (that obviously weren’t about his sister, _those_ were fairly obvious, and all of the times he woke up from them with tears in his eyes and no memory of them were the ones where he never asked her to make him forget through bedding each other, but they’ve become lesser and lesser), everything he said during them felt like something a man who felt like he had gotten everything wrong in his life and was headed for his death might have, but — maybe he does, deep down, and _that_ ’s where it’s going to come out, but that’s all right, she thinks. He is smiling as he sings, not much but he is, and he sounds like talking about it _is_ a good thing, so — cannot hurt, right?

“Suddenly he turned around and she was standin' there, with that ruby sword on her hip and snow falling in her hair, she walked up to him so gracefully and took his crown of thorns — Come in, she said, I'll give you shelter from the storm.”

… So maybe she _is_ crying now, even if she tries to not make it too obvious, but gods, the way he’s singing it, so fondly and so warm and as if it’s the part he likes singing best so far, his eyes always meeting hers for a moment before he turns to someone else in the crowd will _undo her_ , and the way he put it, she maybe can believe _now_ that he managed to tell her that he _does_ love her in more than twenty different ways in twenty and more different songs, but he _has_ and she can’t tell him she loves him in the same terms because she never was much for putting things into nice words over and over again, more like telling them as they are when she could find it in herself, but maybe it doesn’t matter now, does it? Not when she can tell him straight over and over again and that’s _her_ way and _this_ is his.

“Then there had been a wall between them, somethin' that was lost, he took too much for granted, he got his signals crossed, just to think that it all began on an uneventful morn — come in, she said, I'll give you shelter from the storm… Well, the soldier walks on hard nails and the septon rides a mount, but nothing really matters much, it's doom alone that counts, and the one-eyed false king, he blew a futile horn, come in, she said, I'll give you shelter from the storm —”

“Does he mean —” Tyrion whispers at her.

“Euron Greyjoy?” She mouths back, then shrugs slightly, but it could be, he definitely dreamed of fighting him even if he didn’t remember it when he woke up, they _did_ pierce that story together. What she knows is that she can hear people _crying_ in the room, but of course they would. Most of them were here to _know_ what went on during that battle, wouldn’t they?

"I've heard newborn children wailin' like a mournin' dove, and old men with broken teeth stranded without love, do I understand your question, brother, is it hopeless and forlorn — come in, she said, I'll give you shelter from the storm — In a little hilltop village, they gambled for his clothes, he bargained for salvation and his sister gave him a lethal dose, he offered up his innocence, he got repaid with scorn, come in, she said, I'll give you shelter from the storm —”

“ _Seven hells_ ,” Tyrion whispers, sounding like he was expecting anything but _that_. “He wasn’t lying when he said once he was writing something to work through… what he knew and couldn’t recall.”

“Oh, so he told _you_?” She pretends to be affronted, but she’s not — she can see why he’d tell _Tyrion_ that, and she usually does get anticipations from most of the other songs he pens down. She can see why he would keep it for himself until he was ready to share it.

“Well, he’s been living in a foreign country but he’s bound to cross the line, beauty walks a razor's edge, he thinks, _someday I'll make it mine_ , if he could only turn back the clock to when both him and her were born… come in, she said, I'll give you shelter from the storm,” he finishes, with half of the room in tears and the other half cheering him wildly, including the child still on her lap.

“Your father _really_ is great at this, isn’t he?” Brienne asks, leaning her head back down.

“He’s the best,” Duncan replies very seriously, and she can see that Jaime looks floored by the reception as he takes a couple of bows.

They sit back and listen to the rest of the songs he had lined up after the noise calms down, and of course they're all about her and most of the people in the audience know them by heart or so it seems, and Brienne wonders what would her five and ten year old self would have thought if she had known that one day she would have not one, not two, not three, but probably an entire book’s worth of songs written about her by a man she loved more than she could ever conceive loving anyone.

She doesn’t know, but if _she_ could tell herself that in person, she might also tell her that all the pain she’d have to go through to get it would be entirely worth it.

— —

Later, much later, there’s a knock on her door in the Red Keep.

She’s smiling as she opens it, and she’s not surprised to find Jaime outside.

“My lady,” he says, looking half-smug and half like he’s not so sure of how she would receive it, and of course he would, they haven’t had time to talk after he finished playing, but if there’s one thing she _will_ vow to change his mind on as soon as she can is that he should never think that she _wouldn’t_ receive well anything he might sing about her.

She doesn’t think she physically could.

“Jaime,” she answers, trying to sound neutral and utterly failing. She _does_ sound like she couldn’t wait for him to knock. “I suppose you left Sam’s quarters on your own?”

“Duncan makes friends fast, what can I do. I swore I would pick him back up on the morrow. Still, uh, I suppose you heard —”

She shakes her head, letting herself smile properly, not even trying to hide how much her heart is bursting right now.

“Jaime?” She interrupts him, then stares straight down at him, moving a hand behind his neck and opening the door wide. “ _Come in_ ,” she says, intently, making sure he _gets it_ , and for a moment his eyes go wide, but then he smiles back at her, walks up to her, kisses her as she brings his head closer —

And, in he comes.

And this time she knows for sure it is to stay.

 

 

End.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PSA for everyone: someone on tumblr asked me if I'd consider writing some missing scenes from this from a couple of the OC's POVs and I said why not, so since I was figuring I'd do one with more than one POV if anyone would like to see something along those lines and has specific ideas this is your authorization to give me suggestions, I'll try to have it ready in a couple of days or so. ;) aaand I'm really done for now. HERE GUYS I TRIED. <3

**Author's Note:**

> If you're wondering whether my necessary OCs were all named after british playwriters because my imagination is shitty and I decided it was absolutely the smart choice: you're absolutely right. ;) see you all for part two soon!!


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